Simulation and Levelized Cost Analysis of Direct use Geothermal Energy for Enhanced Oil Recovery

Abstract

To meet the demand for crude oil, which has a limited reserve; efforts are needed to maximize proven potentials. One of the solutions is the use of steam flooding as the most widely used Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) technology. However, the challenge that must be faced is the high production cost of steam which strongly depend on fuel cost. Meanwhile, the geothermal utilization in Indonesia is still low, only 9.3%. Seeing these problems and potential, it could be possible to utilize the geothermal heat for steam flooding. However, at present no research has been conducted related to geothermal utilization for steam flooding, only for water flooding. Therefore, this study is aimed to evaluate geothermal heat utilization for steam flooding by evaluating the maximum distance between geothermal and oil field, evaluating the technical aspect by using Honeywell UniSim Design and CMG Star and reviewing the levelized cost of steam. The results that geothermal heat can be used economically and technically possible as a pre-heating system before the boiler and it reduces the cost of steam production by 12% with a maximum distance between geothermal and oil field of 30.1 km.