Welcome to the Spring 2015 Edition of Enhanced Oil. Spring is about new beginnings and here at KU TORP we are excited to see what the coming months have to offer. As many of you know this spring we are hosting our 21st biennial Improved Oil Recovery Conference. This year’s event will be held at the Hyatt Regency in Wichita and will feature a presentation from KU alumnus Rodney Schulz. Mr. Schulz will be discussing the state of the industry and reducing uncertainty in today’s market. This is a great event and we are excited to present our entire slate of speakers, students and industry representatives.

Work continues to move forward on the KU Earth, Energy, and Environment Center. This state-of-the-art complex, scheduled to be completed in 2018, will feature expanded laboratory space that will allow TORP to build on our partnerships with industry. The center will also include an Industry Outreach and Technology Transfer Conference Center, allowing KU to interact more closely with industry. You can read more about this exciting project in this issue of Enhanced Oil.

Finally our search for a KU TORP Director continues. An initial round of candidate visits, presentations and interviews was recently conducted and the hiring committee is working to evaluate the best candidate for this important position. While everybody is eager to have a permanent unit head, they are also committed to taking as much time as needed to find the best candidate for the job.

Thanks for taking a look at this issue of the newsletter. I encourage each of you to attend the KU IOR conference. This is a great event that has featured some of our best and brightest over the years, and I am looking forward to seeing you there. All of us here at TORP hope you have a great summer.

Russell OstermannInterim Director

ENHANCEDNews and Information from the KU Tertiary Oil Recovery Program Spring 2015

From the Director

Ru s s O s t e r m a n nI n t e r i m D i r e c t o r K U Te r t i a r y O i l

Re c ove r y P r og r a m

Earth, Energy and Environment Center

Progress continues to be made on KU’s Earth, Energy and Environment Center. This state-of-the-art complex will be attached to Lindley Hall and will transform KU’s opportunities for impact and interaction with the energy industry in Kansas and surrounding areas.

(Courtesy of KU Geology http://geo.ku.edu/building-fund)

One of the key objectives of this facility is to advance industry-relevant research and bring it to industry in a more efficient manner through technology transfer. Additionally this facility will help to fully integrate geology, petroleum engineering, exploration and environmental science under one roof. This interaction will help KU train the next generation of innovative, ethical industry leaders while building a dynamic interface between the university and practitioners.

(Courtesy of KU Geology http://geo.ku.edu/building-fund)

This building’s expanded labs will double our capacity for stable isotope analysis; dramatically speed experimental work on dolomite diagenesis and accelerate and expand TORP’s ability to partner with industry.

Additionally, the facility will more than triple existing computing power for stratigraphy, GIS, LiDAR, reservoir characterization and analysis.

New labs will include:

• Experimental lab for remediating groundwater contaminated with organic compounds

• Compound specific isotope lab for determination of origin of individual particles of organic matter

• Raman microprobe lab for in situ characterization of kerogen

• Radiometric isotope geochemistry lab for geothermal energy research, tectonics, and provenance studies

• PVT: allows fluid/rock interaction research and geochemical sampling at high pressure and temperature

• 3D visualization: enables high-resolution techniques (CT, gamma, GPR) to image fluid flow through fractured media

• Core scanning: enables calibration of well logs to core

• Paleoclimate: research on human adaptations to rapid climate change

• Clastic sedimentology and stratigraphy research lab

• Rock mechanics/hydraulic fracturing or petrophysics for new faculty member

• Drilling mud formulation and fluid displacement.

(Courtesy of KU Geology http://geo.ku.edu/building-fund)

Among other facilities, the center will include

an Industry Outreach and Technology Transfer Conference Center with a 150-seat auditorium, a 30-seat mediated synchronous conference room/collaboration lab, a 10-work-station hospitality suite for industry visitors, and a business center.

Register Today Secure your spot today for this special KU TORP event and don’t forget to reserve your hotel room at the Hyatt at our competitive KU TORP rate.

21ST BIENNIALIMPROVED OIL RECOVERY

CONFERENCEMAY 3 & 4, 2015

Wichita, KS

For more than forty years, the University of Kansas Tertiary Oil Recovery Program has been providing oil and gas operators and service companies with access to emerging technology and best practices aimed at the industry’s continued success in the region. Traditionally this process has involved working with operators, identifying their key issues, and providing them with learning opportunities tailored to their unique needs. Every two years our relationship with industry, knowledge of best practices and university research come together in the KU TORP Improved Oil Recovery Conference.

More information in this issue and online at www.torp.ku.edu

TORP 21st Improved Oil Recovery Conference

A regional tradition, the 21st KU TORP Improved Oil Recovery Conference is back. This year has brought many interesting changes to the industry and overall has everyone looking at how to run more efficiently and more effectively in a difficult market. This year’s event highlights emerging innovations designed to help operators maximize production while running an efficient operation. Below you will find additional

information about each talk for the conference.

Keynote Presentation Rodney Schulz

This year’s keynote speaker is Rodney Schulz, an independent oil and gas producer and graduate of the KU Petroleum Engineering department. Mr. Schulz is a subject matter expert in the area of oil and gas economics and has taught

his course “Oil & Gas Economics and Uncertainty” – developed specifically for small to midsized operators – to audiences both nationally and internationally. Mr. Schulz is a regular speaker for SPE and has been published in the Journal of Petroleum Engineering, as well as the Oil & Gas Investor.

Schulz spent more than 15 years with ConocoPhillips in a variety of engineering and finance positions. He has served as an expert witness on oil and gas asset valuation cases, has served as a CFO, and recently established Schulz Financial—a retail investment advisory company that manages $7 million for 27 households/40 clients and boasts a 98% client retention ratio. Currently, Schulz is putting together several oil and gas field redevelopment deals in south Texas while continuing to grow Schulz Financial and Schulz Consulting.

In his presentation, Shulz will discuss how the oil and gas industry at large is seeing massive changes as dropping and volatile oil prices are forcing cutbacks in operations, reductions in exploration, and apprehension regarding new technology. He will highlight how, for operators working in the north midcontinent region, this poses challenges in the year ahead but also how the situation can provide opportunities for the right operator or service company.

Chemical Flooding the Trembley Oilfield in Reno County, KS—Dr. Stan McCool and Mark Ballard—KU TORP

Chemical flooding is a technique that can recover a significant amount of the oil that is left after waterflooding. A slug containing surfactants and polymer is injected and displaced through the reservoir by a polymer drive. The chemical slug mobilizes trapped oil, forming an oil bank that is pushed to the production wells.

A chemical slug has been specifically formulated through laboratory work and a field test has been designed for the Trembley Oilfeld. The chemical formulation, injection equipment design and field implementation plan will be reviewed.

This demonstration project is being conducted to provide field results of chemical flooding for independent oil operators. It is sponsored by Kansas University Center for Research, the US Department of Energy, Berexco, LLC, Huntsman Petrochemicals and SNF.

Near Miscible CO2 in the Arbuckle Reservoir—Dr. Jyun-Syung Tsau and Mark Ballard—KU TORP

Many reservoirs are not considered for CO2 miscible flooding because the maximum reservoir pressure that can be attained is less than the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP). Near miscible displacement refers to a process occurring at pressure slightly below MMP but between immiscible and miscible. Within the pressure range significant oil recovery was observed in slim-tube experiments and to a lesser extent in core tests.

Learn how KU TORP set out to determine the feasibility of using CO2 displacement at near miscible conditions to improve oil recovery with injection pressure below minimum miscibility pressure. Additionally we developed and implemented a field test with the goal of showing that significant oil can be recovered by the CO2 process operating at near miscible conditions.

Regional Reservoir Characterization and Simulation—KU Chemical and Petroleum Engineering and Geology Departments

Every year senior KU Petroleum Engineering students team up with students from the Geology Department to work on their capstone project design aimed at improved oil recovery in the region and using a new set of industry data.

This year, KU students worked on the Acorn Unit in Dundy County, Nebraska, which produces mainly from the LKC interval as well as the Oread and Foraker limestones. In this presentation, teams of students will report their analyses of the field, quantitative models of its production, and their recommendations for further development, with projections of costs and possible returns.

The Combined Use of Gel Polymer and Nanofluids to Increase Oil Recovery in Natural Water-Drive, Waterflood, Chemical Flood, and CO2 Flood Reservoirs —Jay Portwood—EOGA

This presentation will describe how water shut-off and injection conformance control chemicals (like gel polymer) are being used in combination with nanofluid stimulation chemicals to improve oil recovery in natural water-drive, waterflood, chemical flood, and CO2 flood reservoirs. Gel polymer treatments have a proven track record in shutting off water when applied to producing wells, and in redistributing fluids at injection wells to improve sweep efficiency in secondary and tertiary oil recovery projects; however, there has been little attention paid to combining these treatments with stimulation techniques to a) help oil flow from lower permeability rock following a water shut-off treatment, or b) improve injectivity into lower permeability rock following conformance control treatments. This presentation will provide details on the strategies used when combining these different yet complementary technologies, and examples from field projects.

Produced Water Treatment—Dr. Karen Peltier—KU TORP

Produced water is a significant waste stream from the production of oil and gas resources, containing high concentrations of salts and organic components that severely limit options for reuse (due to scaling) or safe disposal. Current practices include re-injection into the reservoir for additional recovery, discharge into evaporation ponds, injection into disposal wells, or off-site commercial disposal. Changes in disposal practices, made necessary by a rapidly changing regulatory environment, mean that treatment of produced water is a new area of concern for oil and gas producers. This presentation will review technologies currently in use as well as introduce new ones that are just being developed at TORP.

CO2 EOR in the Wellington Field South Central Kansas—Dr. Lynn Watney—Kansas Geological Survey

This presentation is focused on the Paleozoic-age Ozark Plateau Aquifer System (OPAS) in southern Kansas. OPAS is composed of the thick and deeply buried Arbuckle Group saline aquifer and the overlying Mississippian carbonates that contain large oil and gas reservoirs. The study is a collaboration between the KGS, the Geology Departments at Kansas State University and The University of Kansas, Berexco, LLC, Bittersweet Energy, Inc. Hedke-Saenger Geoscience, Ltd., Improved Hydrocarbon Recovery (IHR), Anadarko, Cimarex, Merit Energy, Glori Energy, and Cisco.

Attendees will receive an update on the progress of the three main areas of focus, 1) a field-scale study at Wellington Field, Sumner County, Kansas, 2) a 25,000 square mile regional study of a 33-county area in southern Kansas, and 3) selection and modeling of a depleting oil field in the Chester/Morrow sandstone play in southwest Kansas to evaluate feasibility for CO2-EOR and sequestration capacity in the underlying Arbuckle saline aquifer.

Nanoparticle Stabilized CO2 Foam for EOR and Hydraulic Fracturing Applications—Dr. Reza Barati—KU Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Department

This presentation will focus on nanoparticle-stabilized CO2 foam systems for EOR and hydraulic fracturing purposes. A foam system that is stable in the presence of crude oil was designed. Improved foam stability and rheological properties were observed due to modification of currently applied CO2 foam systems using these nanoparticles. This system has potential to improve CO2 EOR recoveries from heterogeneous carbonate reservoirs of Kansas.

Research and best practices are most useful when applied in a real-world situation. In these two, 30 minute sessions, attendees will hear from people who helped design and engineer innovative projects in the region.