Enhanced Oil Recovery Aims to Greatly Expand the U.S. Oil Supply
Companies like Occidental Petroleum are pursuing new carbon dioxide-based methods to increase the oil recoverable from U.S. shale wells, potentially extending U.S. energy independence for decades.
Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is a suite of techniques for maximizing production from oil fields after conventional extraction techniques have been exhausted. Oil production relies on the differential between pressure underground in the oil well and at the surface, and this pressure differential can be maintained via “secondary recovery techniques” such as waterflooding or gas injection. EOR, in contrast, aims to change the chemical properties of the remaining oil by injecting one of a number of possible gases into the well, lowering the viscosity of the remaining oil and increasing pressure in the well. If enhanced oil recovery, in particular carbon dioxide-based techniques, could be applied at scale to the United States’ massive unconventional shale oil resources, the effect could be the equivalent of growing the current U.S. oil supply by around 50% or possibly even more, likely extending U.S. energy independence and exports for several more decades and reducing global reliance on oil from the Middle East. A handful of U.S. companies are on the forefront of developing enhanced oil recovery technology, most notably Occidental Petroleum, also commonly known as Oxy (OXY).