(FOA)-DOE/NETL - Advanced Technologies for Enhanced Oil Recovery (DE-FOA-0001988); January 24, 2019

 

Agency

Department of Energy – National Energy Technology Laboratory

 

Description

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) through the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) has released DE-FOA-0001988 entitled “DOE/NETL - Advanced Technologies for Enhanced Oil Recovery".  The objectives of this FOA are to solicit and competitively seek research applications to accelerate the development and application of technologies for enhancing the recovery of petroleum from both onshore conventional and unconventional reservoirs through the injection of chemical, miscible, or thermal fluids. It should be noted that applications for developing and testing technologies, methods and practices for enhancing oil recovery over and above current productions from unconventional reservoirs that do not involve the injection of EOR fluids (e.g., improving fracturing treatments, enhanced well completion design) are solicited in a separate FOA, titled DE-FOA-0001990, Advanced Technologies for Recovery of Unconventional Oil & Gas Resources.

 

The two Areas of Interest (AOIs) for this FOA are:

 

AOI 1 – Enhanced Oil Recovery Technologies for Conventional Resources (with two subtopic areas)

 

1.     AOI - 1A shall focus on the development of new EOR methodologies, technologies or processes designed to significantly improve performance in existing EOR wells and fields where underperformance is due to technology deficits. “Existing EOR well or field” is defined as an EOR well/well field that is commercially operational with all required infrastructure in place prior to the publication date of this FOA. DOE is seeking the application of new technologies, operational approaches/methodologies based off fundamental laboratory research, advanced models, and where applicable, the application of data analytics and machine learning to substantially increase the recover efficiency in these existing EOR fields.  

 

2.     AOI - 1B shall focus on the development of new EOR methodologies, tools, or processes designed for application in un-tested reservoir/play locations that completed primary and/or secondary recovery but have yet to pursue tertiary recovery. This may include laboratory study and validation mechanisms but must include field validation of the prescribed EOR methodology, tool or technology at a field site. Here, the term “untested location” is defined as either a new formation within a field where an existing EOR project is underway, or a new field in a producing area where no similar EOR methods have been applied previously but may be conducive for miscible flooding.  

 

AOI 2 – Enhanced Oil Recovery Technologies for Unconventional Resources

Some examples of areas where research could improve understanding of unconventional EOR include the development and testing of:

 

Novel huff-n-puff methods utilizing miscible gases (e.g., associated gas, CO2), where the research is focused on defining and quantifying the relationships among specific rock/fluid characteristics, stimulated rock volume, well completion design, injected fluid volumes and pressures, injection/production period timing (soak times), and incremental productions

 

Fundamental laboratory research into the potential for miscible gas and chemical flooding EOR methods in specific tight oil plays utilizing actual core material and detailed reservoir characterizations (e.g., not simply modeling exercises). This research must be accompanied by a field test to verify the viability of the fundamental research.

 

Announcement Number

DE-FOA-0001988

 

Closing Date

Concept Papers: January 25, 2019

Applications: March 22, 2019

 

Link to Full Announcement

https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=311501

 

Contact Information

Nicole E. Murray

412-386-7263

nicole.murray@netl.doe.gov