--> Abstract: Looking Back to Find the Future, by M. F. Ayler; #90994 (1993).

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AYLER, MAYNARD F., Oil Mining Corp., Golden, CO

ABSTRACT: Looking Back to Find the Future

When abandoned, many oil fields in the United States still contain extensive mobile reserves considered to be economically unrecoverable. In many fields developed before 1930, production was often by solution gas drive with little or no water drive. Completion practices at that time permitted very rapid depletion of the gas drive, thus limiting ultimate recovery.

Lithologic variations in reservoirs is often a major factor in poor recovery. When economically feasible, infill drilling has been the most effective way of increasing recovery, but as the reservoir depth increases, the cost of infill drilling and well operation increases, limiting this option. In more recent years, environmental objections have been a major limiting factor.

The petroleum industry has not realized that developments in the mining industry will permit sinking shafts to as much as 5000 ft and developing mine access below a producing reservoir. Existing mine drills can be easily modified to permit safe drilling of drains up through the oil-bearing reservoir from below. Natural or induced pressure plus gravity can carry production from completed drains into a flow line to mine access passageways, either to a system of oil-water separators underground or to an inline centrifugal pump to the surface. If water is separated underground, it could be reinjected into the bottom of the producing reservoir or to some other disposal formation. Drains on 1 ac or closer spacing would be possible because the mine access need only be 100 ft or so below the eservoir.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90994©1993 AAPG Southwest Section Meeting, Fort Worth, Texas, February 21-23, 1993.