For the next decade, good investment opportunities may emerge from the four following natural resources: water, agriculture, gold and energy. One of the most amazing combinations is the energy-water nexus.
It takes water to produce energy and energy to produce potable water. This creates many opportunities for profit. Sometimes they are not so obvious. The link between water and energy is at least as old as the method that involves pumping water into oil wells to increase production.
Maybe do you not know, but two thirds of the oil is found in soil. The recovery rate is only 35%.
If the recovery rate increased to 50%, the amount of recoverable oil in the world would increase by 1.200 billion barrels. According to the IEA, it would double the proven reserves today.
"This is the reward of the next half-century," said Howard Mayson, vice president of industry technology at the giant British Petroleum, BP, quoted in The Wall Street Journal. BP relies heavily on the recovery methods. These methods aim to improve the rate of oil recovery.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal: "The recovery is vital for the biggest oil companies like Exxon Mobil Corp.. And BP, undergoing enormous pressure from shareholders to continue to increase production and access to new reserves. But it's difficult when firms are excluded from areas rich in oil, such as the Middle East or Russia. So they have increasingly on existing fields, some of which produce oil for decades already. "
It's like a sponge squeeze harder to remove everything you can. The old way is simply fill the water tank. The idea is to create enough pressure to make it easier to pump oil. This is not very effective, but it works for some time. But it also becomes more difficult ensure a supply of water. This is the reason why oil companies are buying rights to water collection in the West. Right now, oil extraction shale consumes a lot of water.
▪ Rather than using water, some companies fill the tanks of carbon dioxide. Businesses have the habit of storing carbon dioxide in old unused tanks. Using this method of oil recovery, they can use this carbon dioxide. BP uses this method as a reservoir of Prudhoe Bay, and it's effective. The recovery rate is 60%. Now, Prudhoe Bay, which was thought in the 1980s, the cessation of oil production in the next thirty years, seems to be back for another fifty years.
The Wall Street Journal describes another method used by BP: "fill the tank of polymer that swells like popcorn when it comes into contact with hot stones, and highlights more oil from hard to reach."
The delay in the use of these methods is due to the fact that many oil companies have slashed their budgets for exploration and production last year, when prices of oil and gas were in freefall. But it seems inevitable, seeing the speed at which large oil tanks are emptied, the recovery sector de pétrole assistée prenne une grande place. Evidemment, la récupération de pétrole assistée n'est qu'une des choses très intéressantes que Nalco fait en matière de lien énergie-eau.
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