KAZENERGY
New Technologies of Increase in Oil Recovery. The share of acid treatment of wells to increase oil recovery is growing in the Kazakhstan’s market of oil services
Vladimir Tushev, general director of Ziraks-Nefteservice LLP
Acid treatments (acidizing) of oil and gas wells by advanced acid compounds practically always give a growth in productivity per unit of the client’s expenses. Creation of highly efficient domestic acid compounds and infrastructure for work with acids allow the oilmen to use more widely this technique to increase oil recovery. Compared with GRP, this technique can be counted as sparing in regard to the collector and the field on the whole.
One of the reserves for growth in oil production in Kazakhstan is to return a recovery factor to the level of twenty years’ prescription
In recent years, the increase in oil recovery in Kazakhstan had an upward tendency: from 25.8 million tons in 1992 to 70 million tons in 2010. To achieve the level of production of 70 million tons annually it was possible, among others, on the account of intensification of production on a number of fields and application of new technologies of reservoirs’ oil recovery.
Certainly, a great increase in oil production will occur in Kazakhstan with the start of operation of the largest field on the Caspian Sea shelf, Kashagan. However, on the existing fields, which are under development for already 20 years, and there are many of such fields in Kazakhstan, one should not expect in the nearest years a big reserve for further extensive growth in oil production. On the contrary, due to the growing development of former rich fields it is possible even decline in oil recovery. That the oilmen have approached a possible limit of production on a number of fields says the fact that specialists are seriously discussing the methods and technologies of production of hard-to-recover reserves.
The main hopes of oilmen to preserve at least the current level of production are connected with the development of qualitative oil services and application of new techniques of production, especially as the reserve here is great. In the 1990s, the oil recovery ratio in Kazakhstan comprised 42%, but now it has fallen up to 28-29%.
Prior to the start of crisis, investments into oil service were stably growing for several years; in particular, the volume of the drilling market increased by 10-20% annually. According to the data of analytical agencies, the capacity of Kazakhstan’s oil servicing market has come to $2.4 billion in 2008.
The assessments of the market by various experts strongly vary, but all of them are uniform in one thing: in 2009 the market has fallen down. In one’s estimates, in 2009 the oil servicing market decreased by 20% compared with the peak level of 2008, by reaching a level of 2006. If before the crisis the volume of oil services was estimated at $2.4 billion, than in 2009 it was reduced approximately by one and half – up to $1.0 billion.
All experts are also uniform in the opinion that in 2011 the demand for oil services has renewed. According to the experts, the costs for fields’ exploration and development after 2010 reduction will be increased by 19% at a world level, whereas in Kazakhstan the growth of investments will come to 20-30% practically fully compensating decline.