The National IOR Centre of Norway aims to contribute to the implementation of cost-efficient and environmentally friendly technologies to improve the oil recovery on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. The Centre's research has the potential to improve profitability of IOR measures across several dimensions. Our researchers are developing new reservoir-stimulating techniques that are both more efficient, cheaper and more environmentally friendly. We are thus developing methods that can significantly improve the sweeping of the reservoir and increase the oil recovery from the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
The IOR Centre provides solutions for improved oil recovery on the Norwegian Continental Shelf through academic excellence and close cooperation with the industry. To make sure our projects are relevant to our industry partners we offer topic-specific workshops for the partners to attend. By doing so, we are identifying the gaps in the current state-of-the art knowledge of the topic. At the same time, academic researchers are presented with industry challenges, and the industry is presented with the recent research going on at the universities and research institutions. Future focus of the Centre can then be identified based on the feedback from the user partners and participants.
This fall Lundin gave an internal workshop only for the researchers at UiS, NORCE and IFE. The topic of the workshop was the Edvard Grieg data that Lundin have made available for the researchers at the IOR-Centre. By offering the data to the Centre, Lundin encourages the researchers in the Centre to initiate projects that can generate new knowledge and improved IOR-methods, which can improve the oil recovery from the Edvard Grieg field.
One of the strengths of the Centre is that we approach improved recovery on a multiscale level. The following are some research highlights from the Centre at the various levels:
We have come far in developing new tracer technology for in-situ determination of residual oil saturation (SOR) and for better description of flow fields. We are currently investigating phase-partitioning inter-well tracers, nano-particles for inter-well studies and new esters for near-well experiments. We have tested the new inter-well tracers extensively at the lab and several are now qualified to move on for large scale testing.
IORSim and IORCoreSim are good examples of outstanding research at the Centre. IORCoreSim is used by the industry partners and fills a very important need of interpreting core scale experiments to extract valuable information and to improve our understanding of IOR recovery mechanisms. IORSim ensures that we can study the IOR methods developed in the Centre in realistic field scale models. The IOR models in IORSim are custom-made, and we make sure that the models are consistent with the lab-calibrated models in IORCoreSim. Thus, IORSim serves as a bridge between the lab models and the field models, allowing for fast implementation of the Centre’s research in the industry reservoir models. This is important because the ultimate proof of an IOR method studied at the lab is that it gives additional recovery (or economic value) at the field scale.
The Centre is also an important contributor to the Open Porous Media Initiative. Open source is a priority in The National IOR Centre of Norway.
