New technology rejuvenated an aging oil field in the Uinta Basin of northwestern Utah, showing how the world's petroleum reserves can become much greater with smarter production methods.
Because of fractured underground formations and other problems, some fields in the area were surrendering as little as 5 percent of their reserves, says the U.S. Department of Energy.In 1992, the DOE joined with the University of Utah and Lomax Exploration Co. of Denver for an experiment that attempted to recover more of the reserves of a field belonging to Lomax. A new technique, magnetic resonance imaging logging, located fractures in the underground formations and identified oil in places thought to be barren.
With this information, petroleum engineers used computers to calculate where to put in wells. Water injected into the reservoir pushed oil from rock pores and into production wells.
The field's output jumped from 45 to 330 barrels per day.
The experiment triggered what DOE calls "a resurgence of drilling in the region." Companies with nearby wells used the "waterflood" technique at 11 spots, putting in more than 300 wells that were expected to recover 31 million barrels of oil.