PETROLEUM Development Oman (PDO) has ordered a 7 megawatt solar, enhanced oil-recovery (EOR) system from California’s GlassPoint Solar, for use at an existing thermal EOR project in the south of the sultanate. “After extensively researching solar EOR solutions, we’ve identified GlassPoint as the most promising technology for this pilot,” said Syham Bentouati, PDO’s corporate technology advisor.
PDO is turning to a variety of EOR techniques as it looks to boost Oman’s declining oil production, which has rebounded slightly in the last couple of years.
Solar EOR reduces the amount of natural gas burned to produce steam, an essential element of thermal EOR techniques, allowing field operators to use gas in other, more profitable areas, such as power generation and for more lucrative liquefied natural gas exports (PE 3/11 p27) . GlassPoint claims its system can reduce the amount of gas needed for EOR by up to 80%.
The solar EOR facility will use concentrated thermal energy from the sun to produce low-cost, emissions-free steam that will be fed directly into PDO’s existing steam-distribution network. The unit, which will cover an area of around four acres, will produce 11 tonnes an hour of high temperature (312°C), high pressure (1,450 psi) steam.
Steam flooding requires massive amounts of natural gas to generate steam. With natural gas resources increasingly scarce throughout the Middle East, the region’s EOR operations are in direct competition with industrial development.