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Oil, Gas & Mining vocabulary · Production & Offshore

enhanced oil recovery (EOR)

Meaning in oil, gas & mining, with examples

nounAdvanced term

In oil, gas & mining, enhanced oil recovery (EOR) means: Methods used to get more oil out of a mature field than natural pressure and water injection can, for example by injecting CO2, steam or chemicals into the reservoir.

In Turkish: geliştirilmiş petrol kurtarımı, ileri petrol üretim yöntemleri, EOR

How it is used

Also called tertiary recovery. Engineers compare primary recovery (natural flow), secondary recovery (water or gas injection) and EOR. Common types are CO2 flooding, steam injection for heavy oil and polymer flooding. Projects are judged by the extra barrels they add.

Example sentences

  1. An enhanced oil recovery project using CO2 could add 30 million barrels from the field.

  2. Steam injection is the most common enhanced oil recovery method for heavy oil.

Common collocations

  • EOR project
  • CO2 injection
  • steam flooding
  • polymer flooding
  • recovery factor
  • reservoirA layer of porous rock deep underground that holds oil or gas in the tiny spaces between its grains, with rock above it that stops the fluids escaping.
  • flow rateThe amount of oil, gas or water that flows from a well or through a pipe in a given time, such as barrels per day or cubic metres per hour.
  • permeabilityHow easily fluids can flow through a rock, which depends on how well its pores are connected. It is measured in darcies or millidarcies (mD).
  • crude oilOil in its natural state as it comes out of the ground, before it is refined into fuels such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

More terms: Production & Offshore

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