Recent aspects of chemical enhanced oil recovery

The majority of the world’s current crude oil production comes from mature fields. In addition, the rate of replenishment of reserves produced by new discoveries has been decreasing steadily over the past decades. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the status of CEOR and the opportunities for increasing ultimate recovery factors in reservoirs ranging from extra heavy oil to gas condensate. The review specifically discusses the status of CEOR and the chemicals used. Our aim in this work was to present both traditional and newer chemicals used. The relevant pilot tests were collected, because the literature on these is scarce. The published pilot projects are for the period after 2018. This article also describes chemical EOR opportunities, which also represent new CEOR drivers and challenges, especially economics. Recent CEOR technological developments and future CEOR opportunities will be discussed. State-of-the-art CEOR technologies were presented. This review provides comprehensive information on chemical EOR applications in sustainable energy production. After studying the professional publications, it is clear that CEOR technologies will be increasingly needed in the future.