Assessing the Potential for CO2 EOR and CO2 Storage in Depleted Oil Pools in Southeastern Saskatchewan

This study was completed to determine the possibility for CO2 Enhanced Oil recovery (EOR) and subsequent CO2 storage in the depleted oil fields in Southeastern Saskatchewan. It investigates the feasibility of which oil pools have the greatest potential for increased hydrocarbon production via the injection of CO2, and in turn storage of the injected CO2 in the depleted oil reservoirs. Saskatchewan is host to numerous oil and gas pools throughout the Phanerozoic strata with some pools producing since the 1950’s. Such depleted pools are ideal candidates for CO2 EOR as the pools have undergone infill drilling, water flooding and possibly horizontal drilling; tertiary production would be the next phase of production. The Weyburn and Midale fields are prime examples of this technology as both fields have been under CO2 EOR flood since 2000 and are currently producing 14 000 barrels of oil per day of which 9 000 are incremental production due to the injection of CO2. A filtering method was employed for determining which oil pools in Southeastern Saskatchewan would be the best candidates for CO2 EOR. Thirty fields were identified these fields could potentially produce an additional 663 million barrels of oil via CO2 EOR.