South Belridge and "life of field" approach
A look at the success of the South Belridge heavy oil field.
The E&P article Shell enhances enhanced recovery is a nice summary on the South Belridge field in southern California. South Belridge is one of the largest producing fields in the United States and the Tulare formation is a shallow sandstone formation with 13° gravity API heavy oil where cyclic steam injection was pioneered along with continuous steam injection and SAGD resulting in very high recovery efficiencies (approaching 70%). The article calls out three key strategies employed in South Belridge over its history including the use of efficient and innovative EOR technologies to optimize production, low-cost drilling campaigns to target key formations, and aggressive operational maintenance programs to minimize downtime and increase production.
South Belridge is a great study in thermal heavy oil recovery combining all aspects of reservoir planning, drilling, monitoring, and operations with a "life of field" view to optimize recovery.
Kambiz.
