SPE 144961-PP

Large Scale CO2 Flood Begins Along Texas Gulf Coast

Darrell Davis, SPE, Mark Scott, Kris Roberson, and Adam Robinson, Denbury Resources Inc.

Copyright 2011, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Enhanced Oil Recovery Conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 19–21 July 2011.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been
reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its
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Abstract
CO2 flooding of a strong waterdrive reservoir has begun along the Texas Gulf Coast. Ninety (90) million SCF CO2 will be
injected daily during 2011 to pressure up the reservoir and rates as high as 1 billion SCF per day (including recycle) will
ultimately be used to develop this giant oil field. Design of this CO2 flood at a depth of 6000 feet has focused upon pattern
design, operating pressure, and the impact of aquifer influence. Success of this project hinges upon the ability (1) to raise
reservoir pressure above original pressure in the presence of an infinite acting aquifer, (2) to mobilize oil at pressures below
minimum miscibility pressure and at residual oil saturations, and (3) to effectively sweep the reservoir with variations in
horizontal permeability. Laboratory and field performance data have been utilized to improve the design of this continuous
CO2 injection project.

Some of the largest oil reservoirs in the world are composed of high permeability sandstones connected to large aquifers.
These reservoirs are attractive candidates for CO2 flooding due to the size of the initial oil deposit, however the strong
waterdrive and good quality sands often result in low residual oil saturations. With oil zone thickness often exceeding 100
feet, significant challenges also exist in the completion strategy and pattern selection. For the Hastings CO2 flood, five-spot
injection patterns will be staggered so that the upper and lower portions of the reservoir have dedicated injectors and
producers, thus improving vertical sweep. Water injection profiles have also shown that perforation shot density is key to
insuring uniform vertical sweep given the minimal pressure drop across each perforation when low viscosity CO2 is injected.
Reservoir pressure within the pattern must also be maintained, preventing leakoff, in order to maximize displacement
efficiency. This is accomplished by use of water injection wells placed downdip to act as a water curtain, thus reducing
leakoff of pressure into the infinite acting aquifer. As new water injection patterns are developed further downdip, these
updip patterns will be placed on CO2.

Introduction
In order for large scale CO2 flooding along the Texas Gulf Coast to become a reality, a 320 mile pipeline extension had to be
constructed from Louisiana to Texas so that natural CO2 supplies from Mississippi could be delivered to the Hastings field.
(Fig. 1) This “Green pipeline” capable of transporting 800 million SCF per day CO2, not only provides an adequate source of
natural CO2 supply needed to flood the large Gulf Coast oil reservoirs, but also provides a means to capture and utilize
anthropogenic CO2 supplies from industrial plants which normally would be vented into the atmosphere. With final
commissioning of this pipeline occurring during December, 2010, large scale CO2 flooding of the Hastings Field has begun.

The Hastings field was discovered during 1934 by Stanolind Oil Company (formerly Amoco) and the field was rapidly
developed with more than 600 wells drilled within the 4600 acre West Hasting Unit (Fig. 2). Since many of the royalty
owners owned only 10 acres each, 10 acre spacing was utilized to develop the reservoir. This has resulted in high areal
sweep efficiency and oil recoveries exceeding 60% OOIP. Cumulative production of 582 million barrels oil and 2.7 billion
barrels water has been obtained from this high permeability (~1000 md) Frio sandstone reservoir. Current production under
primary conditions is 1000 BOPD and 100,000 BWPD from 75 wells. Gas lift and submersible pumps are used to move
large volumes of fluid, thus allowing for oil saturations to approach residual oil conditions. A recent core taken across the
Upper Frio sands indicate that the intervals separating the high permeability sands are actually low permeability (20-100 md),
high porosity (30%) sands instead of shale (Fig. 3), thus further explaining how the high cumulative production has been
obtained. While these tighter sands may not play a significant role during the CO2 flood, they have provided additional oil
recovery during primary conditions and have increased the remaining oil saturation in the higher permeability sands.
2 SPE 144961-PP

The Frio reservoir at a depth of 6000 feet was first identified as a potential CO2 candidate during the 1980’s and the West
Hasting Unit was created during July, 1984. With the drop in oil prices and a lack of readily available CO2 supplies, the
project was never implemented. With the construction of the “Green pipeline” during 2009-2010 from Louisiana to Texas,
CO2 and water injection has begun to re-pressurize the reservoir. Reservoir pressure will be raised from 2200 psi to
approximately 3000 psi in order to achieve maximum oil recovery using CO2 (Fig. 4). The reservoir was initially saturated at
discovery with a reservoir pressure of 2755 psi and a small gas cap. Given the large fluid volumes extracted from the
reservoir, some concern exists for the ability to re-pressurize the reservoir to levels above original pressure. To reduce this
uncertainty, the project has introduced CO2 injection into the crestal area and water injection downdip (Fig. 5). Not only will
this downdip water injection help to increase and maintain reservoir pressure, but reservoir modeling suggests that this design
will reduce CO2 volumes which would leak off into the aquifer if it was not present. With an operating pressure of 3000 psi
in the oil column, there would be a continuous movement of reservoir fluids into the lower pressure aquifer if the water
curtain was not established. The peripheral water injection and future WAG (water alternating gas) at the original oil-water
contact, will help to reduce these losses and will provide a means to recover the residual oil near the contact.

Project Design

The Frio reservoir produces 31o API oil with an initial GOR of 400 scf/stb. Earlier studies evaluated the use of propane to
enrich the CO2 supply so that the EOR process would be miscible. What has been discovered by the other CO2 floods
operated along the Gulf Coast using Jackson Dome CO2 supply in Mississippi, is that the CO2 recovery process can be very
efficient even at pressures below the minimum miscibility pressure. The CO2 contacts the reservoir oil and strips the light
components of the oil in the reservoir, therefore producing a solvent mixture in the reservoir which is miscible with the oil. If
the process is truly immiscible, there will be an increase in API gravity over time, whereas with the near miscible process,
only a slight change will occur. For Hastings the process is near miscible therefore no appreciable increase in API gravity is
expected. It should be pointed out that equation-of-state modeling indicated a multiple contact miscibility pressure of 6266
psi, while slimtube modeling indicates that the process is very efficient at pressures above 3500 psi. For this reason, CO2
injectors will maintain injection bottomhole pressures ranging from 3500-4000 psi and the producers will be limited to 2800-
3000 psi producing bottomhole pressure to insure high recovery efficiency.

The Jackson Dome CO2 supply in Mississippi is currently transporting over 1 BCF CO2 daily to the 16 fields operated. Oil
production associated with these projects is roughly 40,000 BOPD (April-2010) and many are at their early stages of
development. Hastings EOR production is expected to exceed 15,000 BOPD once fully developed. To obtain this oil rate,
250 MMCFPD CO2 will be gathered off of the Green pipeline at peak load, and an additional 750-850 MMCFPD will be
produced and reinjected. It is estimated that a pattern will produce back 75% of the injected CO2 after only 1 HCPV
(hydrocarbon pore volume) CO2 injected, or roughly 4-5 years time. Wells will flow into an 800 psi high pressure system
and turbine injection compressors will be used to boost the processed CO2 back up to the 1900 psi surface injection pressure.
Surface mounted injection pumps may also be installed in the field to raise the pressure of the CO2 taken off of the Green
pipeline. Continuous CO2 injection is preferred over WAG since the wells will flow and water injection requirements are
reduced.

Since the Upper Frio sand is over 200 feet thick in some areas, two separate pattern arrangements will be used to process the
reservoir. Assuming 75 feet net pay and 80 acres per pattern, the original oil-in-place was 9.3 million barrels oil with
reservoir volume of 11.2 million RB (reservoir barrels) assuming 1.2 RB/bbl. An average CO2 injection rate per pattern of 15
MMCFPD equates to 7500 RB/day, thus indicating that it will take roughly 4 years to inject one HCPV (hydrocarbon pore
volume) CO2. Fig. 6 shows a dimensionless oil recovery and CO2 production curve which can be used to design CO2 floods
like Hastings. These curves are dependent upon residual oil saturation, reservoir heterogeneity, and relative permeability
effects. The oil recovery curve indicates that it will take more than 4 HCPV’s CO2 injection to achieve 15% OOIP oil
recovery. The CO2 production to CO2 injection ratio curve indicates that after only 1 HCPV CO2 injected, that the pattern
will be producing 75% of the injected CO2. Curves like these are used to develop the oil production, CO2 injection, and CO2
purchase volume forecast for each pattern, with a total field forecast then generated by scaling up the individual patterns.
The CO2 production to injection ratio is critical in determining how much CO2 will have to be purchased and how much
compression will be required. If the CO2 production is delayed, then CO2 injection into additional patterns may also have to
be delayed in adequate supplies of purchased CO2 are not available. Each field operated has shown to have a unique set of
curves based upon the geology and effectiveness of oil recovery during primary and secondary processes. The presence of an
initial gas cap and structural position of the pattern has also shown to play a significant role in the prediction of oil recovery
and amount of CO2 produced. The most updip patterns produce at higher gas-oil ratios due to the density effects of CO2.
The curve also shows an amount of fill-up time required prior to the initiation of oil and CO2 production.

Although Hastings did not require water injection to obtain high oil recovery, water injection was initiated during 2007 to
build up reservoir pressure in the vicinity of the producers, thus allowing for higher production rates. Injection profiles run in
over 20 of these water injection wells indicated that water was primarily being injected into the uppermost sands perforated,
SPE 144961-PP 3

with deeper sands receiving very limited injection volume. Water injection rates of over 10,000 BWPD per well were being
achieved, so the rate of injection was not the cause of these unfavorable injection profiles. The team recognized that with
CO2 the profile would be even worse due to the low viscosity of CO2. It was at this point that the decision was made to limit
the number of perforations per injector. Wells which would normally be perforated 4-6 shots per foot are now perforated 1
shot every 4 feet. Over 100 feet of interval, this results in only 25 shot holes. This limited shot density has been performed
on 3 CO2 injectors and 6 water injectors thus far, with good success. On two of the CO2 wells, additional perforations have
been added after injection profiles were run. Fig. 7 and 8 show the nodal analysis of CO2 and water respectively. For CO2,
it has been found that one perforation can support 1-2 MMCFPD CO2 injection. Since the water injection wells will
ultimately become CO2 injectors as we move further downdip with development, we must perforate them as CO2 injectors
even though their injection rates will be reduced from over 10,000 BWPD per well to 5000-6000 BWPD per injector. The
greater pressure drop across the perforations and lower injection rates will result in lower effective reservoir pressure around
the wells, but there will still be significant benefits in reduction of fluid movement out of the injection patterns. By 2012,
injection will exceed 100 MMCFPD CO2 and 50,000 BWPD.

Pattern Selection Criteria

While some strong waterdrive reservoirs maintain pressure to sufficient levels to be miscible with CO2, Hastings reservoir
pressure has dropped from 2755 psi initial to 2200 psi. This requires that the reservoir pressure be raised to levels above the
aquifer pressure, thus resulting in displacement of reservoir fluids into the aquifer. Since the downdip portions of the
reservoir are at residual oil saturation, all fluids displaced initially will be water. By beginning CO2 development in the
crestal area of the reservoir, the following benefits were identified:

• Higher remaining oil saturation in the crestal area.

• Ability to build pressure against the bounding faults.
• Less peripheral area required for the water curtain.
• Indirectly begin a gravity stable displacement process.
• Prevent losses of CO2 and oil into the aquifer.
• Maximize use of available wellbores.

For reservoirs which have aquifer pressures above minimum miscibility pressure, CO2 injection at the oil-water contact can
be effective because the drawdown of the updip producers will result in CO2 movement updip. For Hastings, downdip CO2
injection at the oil-water contact was not advised since CO2 will move into the aquifer during the repressurization process.
Even if this was not an issue, the reservoir is so large that downdip injection with crestal production would result in very slow
response time. Injection into the crestal area at Hastings will allow for the benefits identified above to be obtained, and oil
response should be more rapid and higher percentage of total fluid. The reservoir is being pressured up with CO2 and water
during 2011 and first oil production is anticipated by year-end.

Hastings CO2 flood will begin in upthrown Fault Block “A” of the West Hastings Unit. This fault block had the most oil in
place in the Upper Frio sands and was very consistent geologically. The updip portion of the reservoir had the highest
percentage of remaining wellbores which had not been plugged and abandoned, and any re-pressurization process with CO2
would have to address these wellbores from a mechanical standpoint. During 2010, workovers were performed on
approximately 50 wells to allow for 6 CO2 injectors and 27 producers to be made ready for the start of CO2 injection. The
other wells were temporary abandoned with cement plugs so that communication within the wellbore could not occur.
Production of 500 BOPD and 50,000 BWPD was shut-in during December 2010 to allow for re-pressurization efforts with
CO2 and water injection to begin.

Fig. 9 and 10 show the two Upper Frio patterns which will begin production by year-end. Two CO2 injectors are used for
each pattern to repressurize the reservoir, and four downdip water curtain wells will be used to contain reservoir pressure
within the pattern. The bounding faults act as a barrier to fluid movement and allows the pressure to be built up at a faster
rate than if no faults were present. It is anticipated that at least half of the injected water moves downdip towards the aquifer,
whereas the faults allow for no fluid movement. This increases the likelihood that the 3000 psi reservoir pressure can be
established within these patterns. It is for these reasons that we feel the updip CO2 injection at Hastings is optimum. For
other fields where initial gas caps were large and gas cycling occurred, water injection into these gas caps along with
peripheral CO2 injection would be preferred. Under these circumstances, leakoff of CO2 into the depleted gas cap and into
the aquifer will have to be addressed.
4 SPE 144961-PP

Gulf Coast CO2 Flooding Brings New Challenges

While 14 other CO2 floods are being conducted in Mississippi and Louisiana using the Jackson Dome CO2 supply, the Gulf
Coast Texas fields have brought on new challenges which have had to be addressed. Water management has shown to be just
as important as CO2 management during the design phase. In the Mississippi fields, the average permeability is lower than
than what is seen at Hastings, and the aquifer size is not as significant. The lower permeability allows for the Mississippi
fields to be pressured up without the need for downdip water support, as the leakoff of CO2 from the pattern is slowed. The
limited aquifers also minimize the concern with CO2 lost into the aquifer. Hastings has tackled both of these challenges using
an innovative design, but it will require strict adherence to design parameters. High pressure water injection must be
maintained at all times to insure maximum reservoir pressure. The project has pointed out that timely regulatory permitting,
execution of well work, and daily monitoring of injection volumes is critical to project success.

In addition to lower permeabilities and smaller aquifers, the Mississippi and Louisiana fields are often limited to 35-50 feet in
gross interval, thus reducing the concern with poor vertical sweep efficiency. Hastings’ high permeability and large zone
thickness has required that the zone be broken up into two injection patterns and that limited shot density be used for the
injectors. While this will improve the injection profile and will insure adequate drawdown of the various sands, there will
still be some sands which will process at higher rates than others. This will result in each sand developing its own set of
dimensionless oil recovery and CO2 production to injection curves. While non-uniform sweep is a concern, the historical
production performance of the Frio reservoir at Hastings indicates that good areal and vertical sweep should occur under CO2
flood operations. Approximately 5 HCPV’s CO2 will be required to achieve the desired oil recovery, a 20-25 year process
for each pattern.

Another difference between lower permeability reservoirs and those within the Gulf Coast of Texas, is that CO2 injection
rates are not as high in the lower permeability reservoirs. As we move into darcy permeability sands in Texas, the CO2
injectors can inject anywhere from 15-30 MMCFPD per well, and this puts increased demand upon our Jackson Dome CO2
supply and pipeline network. To meet these demands, two pump stations have been installed, one in Mississippi and one in
Louisiana. For every 3-4 high rate CO2 injectors in Texas, the same CO2 supply well at Jackson Dome could have provided
injection to 8-10 patterns in Mississippi. If anthropogenic CO2 supplies from industrial plants become a reality, this will free
up Jackson Dome CO2 supplies for other projects planned along the Gulf Coast. Along with these challenges identified,
comes great EOR potential for these billion barrel oilfields along the Texas Gulf Coast.

Residual Oil Saturation and It’s Impact Upon Oil Recovery

When the Hastings field was acquired during 2009, it had produced for 75 years from 37 different sand members, 15 fault
blocks, with over 600 wells. The average watercut was 99% and the field was nearing residual oil saturation throughout the
reservoir. A typical recompletion would yield 20 BOPD and 1000 BWPD on gas lift. With this information, a determination
of residual oil saturation was critical to prediction of performance under CO2 flood operations. Based upon historical
estimates of OOIP, the West Hasting Unit has produced approximately 65% OOIP. Based upon calculated values in Table 1,
this would suggest that the residual oil saturation to water is 16%. The reservoir can be swept to Sorw of 16% and still have
35% OOIP remaining after primary depletion. This is due to a maximum displacement efficiency of 80% and an estimated
vertical and areal sweep efficiency of 90% each. Under this scenario,

The residual oil to water (Sorw) as a percentage of the original oil-in-place (OOIP) can be determined by the equation:

%OOIP (residual) = Sorw/Soi (Equation 1)

The displacement efficiency (Ed) is a function of the residual oil saturation. It can be determined by the formula:

Ed = (1-Sorw-Swi)/(1-Swi) (Equation 2)

If we assume areal sweep efficiency (Ea) of 90% due to the 10 acre well spacing, and vertical sweep efficiency (Ev) of 90%
due to the systematic plugback of wells from zone to zone over the 75 year life of the field, the following recovery factors are
calculated for various residual oil saturations using the formula:

RF = Ed * Ea * Ev (Equation 3)
SPE 144961-PP 5

TABLE 1 – Residual Oil Saturation to Water and Remaining Oil

Sorw Swi % OOIP (Sorw) Ed Ea Ev RF %OOIP EOR Target (LOW) EOR Target (HIGH)
16% 20% 20.0% 80% 90% 90% 65% 35% 5% 10%
18% 20% 22.5% 78% 90% 90% 63% 37% 7% 12%
20% 20% 25.0% 75% 90% 90% 61% 39% 9% 14%
22% 20% 27.5% 73% 90% 90% 59% 41% 11% 16%
24% 20% 30.0% 70% 90% 90% 57% 43% 13% 18%
26% 20% 32.5% 68% 90% 90% 55% 45% 15% 20%
28% 20% 35.0% 65% 90% 90% 53% 47% 17% 22%
30% 20% 37.5% 63% 90% 90% 51% 49% 19% 24%

The EOR Target (LOW) assumes an ultimate recovery factor of 70% with CO2 while the EOR Target (HIGH) assumes 75%
ultimate recovery. If we assume that the reservoir can be swept down to 0% Sor where the CO2 contacts the oil, and we
obtain an 85% vertical and areal sweep efficiency, the ultimate recovery will be 72.3% OOIP. This would indicate an
incremental oil recovery of 15.6% OOIP. Using the historical OOIP for the West Hastings Unit, a recovery factor of 65%
would be obtained and Sorw would be 16%. Fortunately, the recent core suggests that there is more OOIP than originally
estimated due to the tighter, high porosity sands present. A recent openhole log in a downdip area of Fault Block “A”
indicated that the water saturation was approximately 70% in three sands, 80% in two, and 85% in one, for an average water
saturation of 76%. This would indicate that the historical residual oil saturation estimate of 24% is reasonable. We would
therefore expect an incremental oil recovery of 13% OOIP on the low case, and 18% OOIP on the high case.

For the 24% Sorw case, 30% of the OOIP remains in the swept areas, while 43% OOIP remains overall. To recover 15%
OOIP we must recover 50% (0.15/0.30) of the remaining oil in the swept area, or 35% (0.15/0.43) of the remaining oil
overall. If the residual is 18% as seen in some core results, we will have to recover 67% (0.15/0.225) of the remaining oil in
the swept area, or 41% (0.15/0.37) of the remaining oil overall. This highlights some of the risk of achieving high oil
recoveries in these clean Gulf Coast sandstones which have experienced strong waterdrive.

Conclusions

Large scale CO2 flooding of Hastings field south of Houston began December, 2010. Approximately 90 MMCFPD CO2 and
50,000 BWPD will be used to re-pressurize the reservoir prior to production. Since the reservoir has produced 582 million
barrels oil and 2.7 billion barrels water, an innovative approach had to be developed to allow for re-pressurization while at
the same time, prevent leakoff of CO2. Water injection wells are utilized in the offsetting patterns surrounding the initial
patterns, thus allowing for a high pressure water curtain to be developed, and for the initial pattern to be pressured up.

Success of this project hinges upon the ability (1) to raise reservoir pressure above original pressure in the presence of an
infinite acting aquifer, (2) to mobilize oil at pressures below minimum miscibility pressure and at residual oil saturations, and
(3) to effectively sweep the reservoir with variations in horizontal permeability. The team recognized that limited perforation
shot density is required to improve vertical sweep efficiency with the low viscosity CO2. Although oil recovery is high, high
porosity, low permeability sands exists which has increased the OOIP for the field. These sands look like marine shales on
logs. The reduction in reservoir pressure over time has allowed oil within these tighter sands to flow into the permeable
sands, thus increasing remaining oil saturations.

A significant finding during this study is the potential for CO2 losses into the aquifer. Originally CO2 injectors were to be
placed at the original oil-water contact as Fault Block “A” was fully developed, but simulation results identified that the CO2
losses could be significant. At this point, the decision was made to use these wells as water injectors, and then at some point
in the future use them as WAG injectors. The other fault blocks can be developed prior to making this WAG decision.

The West Hastings Unit development will begin in the crestal area of Fault Block “A”, and this has been found to offer some
significant benefits to the project. Not only is the oil saturation highest at this updip position, but the bounding faults allow
for re-pressurization to occur quicker since they act as barriers to fluid movement. The peripheral area required for the water
curtain is also smaller, therefore water injection can be applied more directly to the initial patterns.

This continuous CO2 injection project is made possible by a 320 mile “Green pipline” extension from existing infrastructure
in Mississippi connecting Jackson Dome CO2 supply. This pipeline not only provides an avenue for natural CO2 supplies to
enter Texas, but also a means to gather anthropogenic CO2 which would normally be vented into the atmosphere.

Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Denbury Resources for permission to prepare and present this paper.
6 SPE 144961-PP

Fig. 1 – 24 inch CO2 pipeline from Louisiana to Texas

Fig. 2 – West Hasting Unit Upper Frio Reservoir

SPE 144961-PP 7

Fig. 3 – Log section of Upper Frio sands

Fig. 4 – Bottomhole pressure measurements with target pressure

8 SPE 144961-PP

A-1 OWC

A-4 OWC

CO2 injector
WAG injector

Fig. 5 – Fault Block “A” CO2 Design with updip CO2 injection and downdip WAG

Fig. 6 – Dimensionless Oil and CO2 Recovery versus HCPV CO2 injected type curves
SPE 144961-PP 9
10 SPE 144961-PP

DEPTH – 5500’
TBG – 2-7/8” CLS
FLUID – CO2
A1/A2/A3 - LAYERS
BTM 10 holes (10%)
HOLE INJ
PRESS in 100 feet

DESIGN
NODE

20 holes (20%)
in 100 feet

RES
PRESS

Fig. 7 – Nodal analysis of CO2 injection down 2-7/8” tubing with various perforation density

WATER INJECTION
10 holes (10%) in 100 feet

20 holes (20%)
in 100 feet

Fig. 8 – Nodal analysis of Water injection down 2-7/8” tubing with various perforation density
SPE 144961-PP 11

Fig. 9 – Upper Frio A1, A2, and A3 initial development patterns

Fig. 10 – Upper Frio A4, A4L, and A5 initial development patterns