UWs EORI Publishes CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery Update

The University of Wyoming’s Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute (EORI) has published an updated report on Wyoming’s carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery potential, prospective amenable oil and gas fields, and favorable CO₂ pipeline capacity.

The report is available here.

Wyoming has world-class fields that have proven to be excellent targets for CO₂ enhanced oil recovery and have the potential to recover significant future oil reserves from Wyoming reservoirs, EORI says. Since 2010, more than 10 percent of the state’s oil production has been incremental oil from CO₂ floods.

CO₂ enhanced oil recovery has been used in Wyoming since 1986, and nine commercial-scale CO₂ floods currently are active in the state. The average incremental oil recovery for Wyoming’s ongoing CO₂ floods is over 10 percent of estimated oil in place in those fields, and the average total incremental oil recovered for all ongoing CO₂ floods is over 15 million barrels per reservoir -- and over 135 million barrels for the state.

EORI’s report presents oil production data from each commercial-scale CO₂ flood; provides a brief discussion of the geology of each field; discusses the current CO₂ supply and pipeline system for the state; and provides an estimate of potential future production from CO₂ enhanced oil recovery if widely employed in Wyoming.

The mission of EORI is to facilitate a meaningful and measurable increase in recoverable reserves and production of oil and natural gas in Wyoming that may otherwise not be realized. Key to this is the effective and efficient transfer of relevant technology, information and knowledge to Wyoming producers. EORI believes that its mission is being met when producers consider EORI as a vital source of relevant technology, information, expertise and knowledge for Wyoming fields.