Is oil easy to extract?
Answers
Extracting oil and natural gas from deposits deep underground isn’t as simple as just drilling and completing a well. Any number of factors in the underground environment – including the porosity of the rock and the viscosity of the deposit -- can impede the free flow of product into the well. In the past, it was common to recover as little as 10 percent of the available oil in a reservoir, leaving the rest underground because the technology did not exist to bring the rest to the surface. Today, advanced technology allows production of about 60 percent of the available resources from a formation.
Primary recovery first relies on underground pressure to drive fluids to the surface. When the pressure falls, artificial lift technologies, such as pumps, are used help bring more fluids to the surface. In some situations, natural gas is pumped back down the well underneath the oil. The gas expands, pushing the oil to the surface. Gas lift technology is often used in offshore facilities. Primary recovery often taps only 10 percent of the oil in a deposit.
Secondary recovery is the most widely applied enhanced recovery technique. Water that is produced and separated from the oil in the initial phase of drilling is injected back into the oil-bearing formation to bring more oil to the surface. In addition to boosting oil recovery, it also disposes of the wastewater, putting it back where it came from. This can bring an additional 20 percent of the oil in place to the surface.
Enhanced recovery techniques are used to mobilize the remaining oil.