EOR Technology Plays An Important Role In Increasing Oil And Gas Field Productivity

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Director General of Oil and Gas at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Tutuka Ariadji revealed that the target for oil production of 1 million barrels per day and gas 12 billion cubic feet per day in 2030 launched by the Government will not be achieved without the Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR).

"EOR technology plays an important role in the old oil and gas field, which cannot be increased in production with infill drilling or waterfood," he said in his remarks at the 2022 Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Festival Award in Jakarta, Thursday 15 December.

He continued, Indonesia's oil and gas field recovery factor currently reaches 33 percent, which means that the national oil and gas field is very old or old. This is the most appropriate thing for EOR to do.

"So this is the time for EOR to be done. Optimization of production will only withstand production declines, cannot increase production," explained Tutuka.

To increase production, continued Tutuka, it can be done in 2 ways, namely EOR and the discovery of new oil and gas reserves through massive exploration.

"We are aware that our current oil production is flat. It has increased slightly but has not yet gone above because EOR and exploration have not yet been implemented," he said.

Although the EOR has not been implemented optimally, the Government is not discouraged because currently the method of Huff & puff has been carried out in a number of oil and gas fields, between at Jatibarang Field.

"Huff & puff is not EOR, but without hub & puff, we can't be sure to do EOR," explained Tutuka.

This Huff & puff method provides confirmation and validation of EOR technology specifically on the well scale, so that it is further hoped that it can also be applied in other oil and gas fields that are actively conducting CO2-EOR study activities.

The government hopes that this kind of award event can be carried out continuously to encourage EOR activities.

"We are very open to discussing what researchers and practitioners need to encourage EOR. We are jointly looking for solutions, looking for opportunities to implement EOR so that it can achieve the production targets set by the government," he concluded.