American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2017 - 29

TECHCONNECTIONS
RPSEA Review
Includes A Presentation
On Developing ROZ
The Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America
came together last summer in Galveston to highlight 10 years of
research for both onshore and offshore operations. For more
than a decade, RPSEA has supported development of new technologies necessary to produce more secure, abundant and affordable domestic energy supplies. In that time, RPSEA has
made great strides in developing and commercializing technologies
designed for the small producer, unconventional resources, and
ultradeep water.
It seems lately that when I mention RPSEA, a lot of folks are
under the impression the organization is on the way to closing
its doors, with its federal Section 999 funding coming to an end
last year. This could not be further from the truth.
In fact, with the addition of Tom Williams as president, the
development of new industry and academic partnerships, and
its ongoing technology transfer efforts, RPSEA is poised to
move forward as a leading, industry-driven research and development organization. RPSEA has the unique ability to move
fundamental research through the development process into
useful technology. Then, utilizing its industry relationships,
RPSEA helps promote acceptance and overall adoption of newly
developed technologies.
Nowhere has RPSEA's commitment to industry and its record
of success been more apparent that at its event in Galveston,
highlighting the last 10 years of research. Of the more than 100
talks and presentations given at this event, one in particular
stood out to me as a great example of how RPSEA can move a
project from an idea into a reality for industry.
Steve Melzer from Melzer Consulting presented a talk in
two parts titled, "Identifying and Developing Technology for
Enabling Small Producers to Pursue the Residual Oil Zone
(ROZ) Fairways of the Permian Basin, San Andres." Melzer has
been in industry for more than 30 years, and is an expert in
reservoir characterization and the science of commercially exploiting residual oil zones, looking specifically at carbon dioxide
flood performance, sequestration, policy, and business planning.
His talk highlighted work Melzer and his team conducted over
several years with a simple idea in mind: How do we help
operators recover oil from a residual oil zone in their area?
Melzer began with a quick look at the history of oil bearing
zones beneath the oil/water contacts, or ROZ. He noted that in
the 1970s, as operators began to drill for deeper horizons, they
began noting oil shows below the oil/water contacts. In the
1980s, by examining cores of show areas, companies began to
find oil saturations equivalent to saturations in swept zones of
mature waterfloods, making them targets for enhanced oil recovery.
In the 1990s, the industry put together two CO2 floods just
below the main pay zones. As more work was conducted, initial
estimates of the oil resource below almost 50 oil fields in the
Permian Basin came in at approximately 31 billion barrels. Between 2008 and 2015, RPSEA-funded studies expanded the understanding of these zones and increased initial estimates from

"RPSEA's focus on making advanced
technology and best practices available to all

operators is clear in the results of this work.

31 billion to almost 200 billion barrels of oil just beneath main
pay zones.
Melzer described different types of residual oil zones and
how they were formed. He explained that a ROZ was that
portion of the reservoir below the oil/water contact where
residual oil resided, but the mobile phase was water. He
highlighted a 2006 Department of Energy report that positioned
a ROZ as an alternative to "transition zones."
Melzer discussed two RPSEA projects and how that research
was being commercialized. One interesting outcome of this
work is the Residual Oil Zone Step-by-Step Guide. Melzer described the guide as an attempt to assist a company in evaluating
whether a ROZ existed beneath its producing field and where it
might exist outside the limits of a field. The guide is intended to
help determine the properties of the fluids and rocks within the
zone, and how EOR methods may help exploit this zone.
Some of the basic steps Melzer recommends are to gather a
multidisciplinary team composed of reservoir, geoscience, petrophysical and geophysical folks to study the area. He encourages
operators to document and re-evaluate all data. Once complete,
he said to try to screen out all unlikely or poor candidates, and
then begin to gather new data in the targeted area.
This event and Melzer's work are but a couple examples of
how RPSEA is advancing the oil and gas industry. The organization's focus on making advanced technology and best practices
available to all operators is clear in the results of this work. I am
eager to watch as RPSEA moves into the next chapter of this
ever-evolving industry.
You can read more about Melzer's work in the "small
producer" section of RPSEA's website at www.rpsea.org. r

JEREMY VISCOMI is the di-

rector of technology transfer
for the University of Kansas
Tertiary Oil Recovery Program
and the PTTC Midcontinent
Region office. He has more
than a decade of experience
in developing and organizing
technical conferences and special events.
JANUARY 2017 29

American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2017

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