Ministry says Pertamina?s EOR pilot project ?encouraging?
Monday, July 29 2013 - 01:19 AM WIB
The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources said that the Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) pilot project conducted by PT Pertamina EP (PEP) at its Tanjung field in South Kalimantan is progressing well.
?The EOR pilot is progressing well. Surfactant injection has been carried out for eight months, and there are good signs from three monitoring wells around the pilot well. It?s encouraging,? Vice Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Susilo Siswoutomo told Petromindo.com Monday.
Susilo and Director General of Oil and Gas A. Eddy Hermantoro visited the Tanjung EOR pilot project in the middle of July to take a close look of the latest progress. The EOR technology is expected to be able to help increase production at aging wells.
PEP President Director Syamsul Alam, however, told Petromindo.com that despite signs of progress it?s too early to make a comprehensive conclusion. While the surfactant produced by the Bogor Agriculture Institute resulted in good recovery factor (RF) in the laboratory, it has yet to be proven in the field scale. ?The latest information from the team is that there?s yet to be significant response. There?s a decline in the water content at several observation wells, but the results could not yet be concluded comprehensively,? he said, reiterating that the EOR is still at the stage of field trial at the moment. ?So, don?t expect additional output at this stage.?
The upstream oil and gas authority SKK Migas has been pushing oil and gas production sharing contractors to implement EOR technology in their oil wells which have seen declining production. Aside from PEP, other contractors including Medco and Total have also started implementing EOR pilot projects in Sumatra.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak