What have we achieved in the IOR Centre?

One of the main objectives of the research at the Centre is robust upscaling of recovery mechanism observed on pore and core scale to field scale. The main aspects on pore scale are to identify the mechanisms that influence transport and reactions using experiments and numerical modeling, and then to evaluate if these mechanisms are important on the core scale. The pore scale simulator is an important tool in this work. 

Lately, our researchers have worked to improve the documentation and user interface of the BADChIMP pore scale numerical model to help facilitate its use by a larger user group. We will also deliver user documentation (user manual) for the basic use of the BADChIMP code. 

IORCoreSim is a tool for simulating the combined effect of low salinity water injection and polymer flooding on oil recovery. For this work, PhD student Oddbjørn Nødland and senior scientist Arild Lohne at NORCE won SR-bank's Innovation Prize 2018.  

Together Lohne and Nødland have developed a simulation tool with a potential for great positive implications for the industry. IORCoreSim can contribute to minimize the use of polymers and thereby saving the environment and maximizing recovery of excisting oil reservoirs. 

Several of our industry partners are using the tool already. 

The IORSim is a high-tech tool that will help to streamline and improve the oil recovery in existing fields. The IORSim reads output from eclipse, diffuse and advect tracers, IOR chemicals and temperature along the flow fields defined by the reservoir simulator. 

10 December 2019 we gave our first user course in IORSim. In 2020, the second version of IORSim was released.

A collaborative effort where the objective is to develop open-source simulation tools for porous media flow. The goal of the initiative is to establish a sustainable environment for the development of an efficient and well-maintained software suite. 

OPM encourages innovation and cooperation between both academia and industry; it is in use on fields worldwide, including five full fields at the NCS so far. Achievements from the IOR Centre are included in release versions twice a year. 

Bridging the gap between lab and field. The purpose of the most recent yard test has been to evaluate the thermally triggered polymers such as associative polymers to study polymer retention, polymer propagation and thermal-activation mechanism. 

The large-scale test at Halliburton is an integrated project with service companies, operators, and chemical suppliers (BASF, SNF). It will take us a step closer to field pilot. 

The tracers developed at IFE can measure reservoir properties and conditions during production. The most important condition is the oil saturation, either in the flooded volume between wells or in the near-well region out to some 10 meters from the well (single-well huff-and-puff examinations). 

The nanoparticle tracer technology developed at IFE has the potential to reduce the operational time from days to hours because no well shut-in time is needed since it is not based on ester compounds, which need time to hydrolyze. A successful development of this technology will constitute a major forward leap in SWCTT for S_or determination. 

In 2001 ensemble-based data assimilation methods were applied for petroleum problems at IRIS (now NORCE) for the first time. Since then, we have conducted extensive research and the approach is now considered state-of-the-art. 

Researchers at the Centre have developed a new approach and workflow for assimilating both production and seismic data. The workflow includes generation of an initial ensemble of reservoir models, data compression based on image denoising, uncertainty quantification of seismic attributes, adaptive selection of influential measurements and use of an iterative ensemble-based method. 

We are using decision and data analytic approaches to identify and value relevant and material data in IOR contexts. Value-of-Information analysis evaluates the benefits of collecting additional information before making the decision on whether to invest in gathering this additional information. 

Our researchers will build a synthetic dataset that mimics the decision contexts of IOR operations under geological uncertainties. It will serve as test subject for different approaches of data screening. After establishing a solid concept, we hope to demonstrate the method on a real field application. 

As part of answering the need for sustainability, we have integrated an environmental risk assessment (ERA) project in all our activities. The purpose of this project is to develop and implement new risk analysis methods and models, suitable for the novel IOR solutions developed at the Centre. 

In 2020, our researchers did initial studies of field specific and large-scale environmental impacts, and will continue working on ERA of smart water/polymer flooding. In addition, we will develop a method for quantifying emissions to air from IOR/EOR solutions. 

University of Stavanger has established a research and educational base in offshore technology that has attracted students from all parts of the world. The National IOR Centre of Norway is an important part of this. During the Centre lifetime, we will educate 29 PhD students and 18 postdocs – far more than originally planned. 

To make sure our PhD candidates also get industry relevant practice during their training, our goal is that all candidates have one supervisor from the industry. We also encourage our industry partners to invite our PhD candidates for short research stays. 

The annual conference at University of Stavanger has become a great arena for academia, research institutions and industry to share knowledge and get an update on the latest in IOR research. About 300 participants each year is a high number considering the difficult times in this industry the last few years. In addition, we are proud to say that the conference has become an important arena even for the master students at UiS. 

As one of the research centers for petroleum in Norway, the government expect that the IOR Centre through concentrated, focused and long-term research efforts at a high international level, solve the identified challenges for utilization of the petroleum resources. In this concern, the IOR Centre strives to obtain a close collaboration with national authorities like the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) and the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. When we join forces, we can improve oil recovery at the Norwegian Continental Shelf.  

The prize is awarded during the IOR conference and goes to a young researcher who excels in the field. The prize is named after Professor Emeritus Svein Skjæveland. Since the 1970s, he has, through his research and competence development in the petroleum industry, in his own way contributed to increasing recovery from the oil fields. Skjæveland has been a central part of the management team since the establishment of the IOR Centre.

One of the deliveries to the industrial partners in the Centre is a set of "recommended practices". We have collected the user manuals and "recipes" related to our most important research projects. The reports cover everything from laboratory work to softwares. After the Centre's end, the reports will be available on our website.