Enhanced Oil Recovery Technologies Laboratory
The Science of Enhanced Oil Recovery

The TIORCO® Laboratory – Expanding the Science of Enhanced Oil Recovery TIORCO’s emphasis is on understanding the reservoir to design oil and gas recovery treatments that work. The TIORCO Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Laboratory is an essential element of successful EOR treatments. Through the laboratory’s capabilities to better analyze reservoirs and optimize chemical solutions to meet the unique characteristics of each reservoir, TIORCO’s engineers are reducing the risk and uncertainties of EOR. Completed in October 2009, TIORCO’s expanded EOR laboratory, with more than 5,000 square feet of lab space, provides a single source solution for all phases of product development, enhancement, field deployment, quality control, and cutting-edge research. Here, chemical EOR processes are designed to ensure that best-in-class products are selected for enhanced recovery projects and for testing and monitoring chemical solutions used in each project.

Polymers and Gels Analysis
Because each reservoir and project is unique, TIORCO prepares and tests a range of gels in the EOR laboratory to ensure optimization for the formation’s characteristics and water source. By conducting a rigorous set of tests before, during, and after injection, TIORCO’s lab ensures the overall quality of our products throughout project implementation. These tests also allow the reservoir engineering team to adjust treatments in response to changes in the reservoir.

TIORCO’s continuous development of new technologies incorporating new sources of polymers (polyacrylamides), new crosslinkers, and new water stabilizers ensures that producers are working with the leader for new technologies in the enhanced oil recovery industry.

TIORCO is the exclusive supplier of the BrightWater® technology - a low viscosity sub-micron particulate capable of propagating deep into a reservoir. This innovative solution swells to ten times it original size with time and heat. When swollen, the BrightWater particles divert subsequently injected water, increasing sweep effi ciency and improving oil cut. Continuous advancements in this and other EOR technologies are being made under the guidance of the TIORCO laboratory engineers and scientists.

Phase Behavior Studies
Phase behavior studies allow TIORCO’s reservoir engineers to rapidly and efficiently determine the optimum alkaline-surfactant-polymer (ASP) or surfactant- polymer (SP) formulations for crude oil and brine systems, including mobility control using polymers or foams. By incorporating this modern methodology for designing and evaluating ASP and SP systems using the EOR laboratory’s capabilities, TIORCO has a very effective tool for improving the economics of flooding. Phase behavior studies facilitate ultra-low interfacial tension (IFT) systems and allow early detection of emulsion tendencies that can lead to difficult emulsion formation that negatively affects economics of floods. ASP systems designed by this methodology are tested by measuring the IFT with the spinning drop tensiometer and by conducting core floods to confirm oil recovery potential, adsorption, and transport characteristics in reservoir core material.

Fluids Analysis
It is critical to understand the properties of produced brine, crude oil, polymers, surfactants, emulsions, and foams for the successful design, quality control, application, and monitoring of EOR projects. TIORCO’s fluids analysis laboratories provide the capability to measure fundamental properties of produced oil field and EOR fluids. TIORCO’s laboratories are equipped with modern, state-of-the-art, analytical chemistry and fluids properties equipment including spectrometers (ICP and IC), auto-titration systems, viscometers, pH-meters, interfacial tension (spinning drop tensiometer), densiometer, and ovens needed to accomplish these essential analyses.

Core Flooding
TIORCO’s core flooding laboratory is equipped with two fully automated state-of-the-art core flooding systems designed and constructed by Chandler Engineering. These systems are rated to 350°F and 6000 psi and were designed to use cores up to 12 inches long and 1 or 1.5 inches in diameter. The system also accommodates foam flooding and slim-tube sand packs for testing BrightWater® and Colloidal Dispersion Gel (CDG) polymer systems that require long-term injection for full development of flow resistance factors. Core cutting, fluid saturation measurements and imbibition and wettability alteration assessments are among the TIORCO laboratory’s capabilities. The results from the core floods and slim-tubes are used as basic input to computer simulations that are scaled up to reservoir size for final project design and economic evaluation by TIORCO’s reservoir engineering and simulation groups.