Conventional versus electrical enhanced oil recovery: a review

Abstract

This paper presents a critical and an analytical view of some unconventional EOR techniques. This includes microwave heating, ultrasonic stimulations, direct current heating and induction heating. It also demonstrates that for some specific reservoirs scenarios, some of these unconventional techniques may provide more efficient results, in terms of recovery rate, over conventional techniques in some specific reservoir scenarios. It also discusses two widely investigated electrical techniques, i.e. microwave heating and ultrasonic stimulations and provides two practical setups for field scale implementation. Different conventional and electrical EOR techniques are also compared in terms of their application suitability and limitations.