PRRC Biannual NewsletterVolume 27, No. 1: Spring 2012

The Petroleum Recovery Research Center is a division of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology

PRRC Projects Conclude Successfully

(cont'd, p. 2)

Two recently concluded PRRC projects funded through the Research Partner-ship to Secure Energy for America (RP-SEA) targeted issues that are important to NM small producers.

Pit Rule Mapping PortalIn “Reducing Impacts of New Pit Rules on Small Producers,” funded by RPSEA through its Small Producer Program, PRRC’s research partnership with industry and government has resulted in the successful creation of an online tool that will help New Mexico’s small oil and gas operators fulfill State regulations.

In this project, PRRC research-ers partnered with the Independent Pe-troleum Association of New Mexico, representing over 250 producers in the state of New Mexico, and the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division, a State regulatory agency. With the input and aid of their Industry and State partners, PRRC re-searchers developed the Pit Rule Map-ping Portal, a web-based application with the ability to generate software and maps, utilizing open source GIS software, that allows quick generation of C-144 forms and associated mapped data for any proposed well/pit location

in New Mexico. The Portal enables producers to generate stronger applications faster, and at the same time gives regulators an online tool, utilizing all of their required data sources, to more quick-ly verify applicant data and process applications. HistoryThe 2008 Pit Rules were established by the New Mexico Oil and Gas Con-servation Division, regulating siting of surface pits for waste disposal from oil and gas operations. The new rules brought a new form C-144 that required extensive use of georeferenced data and associated map attachments—as well as significant in-creases to application preparation time for the applicant and for review and verification by NM OCD. Prior to 2008, the C-144 form re-quired one page and had a point sys-tem with simple yes and no questions regarding depth to groundwater and distance to surface water. Extensive modifications to the rule (19.15.17.10.NMAC) and the as-sociated C-144 form that appeared in July 2008 resulted in a significantly longer form using five pages and re-quiring up to 21 attached maps

Please note that the PRRC Review will ap-pear in the Spring and the Fall, starting with this Spring 2012 issue.

The Pit Rule Mapping Portal, an application developed at PRRC to help op-erators comply with State regulations, as well as implement processing by the State Agency.

Petroleum Recovery Research Center A Division ofNew Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology801 Leroy PlaceSocorro, NM 87801

Address Service Requested

MNon-Profit OrganizationU.S. Postage

PaidSocorro, NM

PERMIT NO. 9

New Mexico Institute of Mining and TechnologyDaniel H. López, President

Board of RegentsEx Officio

Susana Martinez, Governor of New MexicoDr. Jose J. Garcia, Secretary of Higher Education

AppointedRichard N. Carpenter, Santa Fe, President, Santa Fe

Jerry A. Armijo, SocorroDeborah Peacock, Corrales

Abe Silver, Santa FeOmar Soliman, Student Regent, Socorro

Petroleum Recovery Research CenterRobert Lee, Director

Senior StaffRobert Balch, Research ScientistJill S. Buckley, Senior Scientist

Martha Cather, Industrial Technology CoordinatorReid B. Grigg, Senior Engineer

Ning Liu, Research ScientistRandall S. Seright, Senior Engineer

PRRC Publications OfficeLiz Bustamante, Editor

This newsletter is produced by the PRRC Publications Office. Views expressed are those of the PRRC staff. Submissions and letters to the editor are welcome. Reprints from the PRRC Review are permitted, provided that credit is given to the New Mexico PRRC. Please send two copies of the publication containing the reprint to Liz Bustamante, PRRC, New Mexico Tech, 801 Leroy Place, Socor ro, NM 87801. PHONE: (575) 835-5406. FAX (575) 835-6031. EMAIL: lizb@prrc.nmt.edu. WEBSITE: http://baervan.nmt.edu

Petroleum Recovery Research CenterA Division of New Mexico Tech

The PRRC is a state-supported center that conducts research on improving methods of recovering crude oil and natural gas and that transfers petroleum technology to domestic oil producers. Funding for the PRRC comes from three sources: the State of New Mexico, the federal government (Department of Energy), and private industry.

PRRC

Oil price data from PRRC's OCTANE website. Prices are NYMEX, through December 31, 2011.

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a division of the new mexiCo institute of mining and teChnology a division of the new mexiCo institute of mining and teChnology

Publications, PresentationsBalch, R., and Parker, A. (2011). "A General-ized Oil and Gas Regulatory Data Mapping Portal." Presented at the World Multi-Con-ference on Cybernetics and Informatics. Orlando, FL July 19–23, 2011,

Balch, R. (2011). "Existing and Planned Seis-mic Acquisitions." Presented at The South-west Partnership Phase III Kickoff Meeting, Salt Lake City, UT, August 30–31, 2011.

Balch, R. (2011). "An Oil and Gas Regulatory Data Mapping Portal." Presented at RPSEA Small Producer Forums: Bakersfield, CA, October 10, 2011; Lawrence, KS, Novem-ber 8, 2011; and Golden, CO, November 30, 2011.

Balch, R. (2011). "Reducing Impacts of New Pit Rules on Small Producers." Final Report, Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America, December, 2011.

Bammidi, V. (2011). "Unconventional Oil and Gas Resource Evaluation of the Woodford Shale in New Mexico." M.S. Thesis, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, New Mexico.

Cather, M. (2011). “Education and Outreach for Phase III.” Presented at the SWP Project

Review, Salt Lake City, UT, August 30–31, 2011.

Grigg, R., and McPherson, B. (2011) “South-west Partnership, Phase III: Overview.” Presented at the U.S. DOE Carbon Storage Program Infrastructure Annual Review Meet-ing, Pittsburgh, PA, November 15, 2011.

Kamaraj, K. (2011). "Effect of Residual Oil Saturation on Recovery Efficiency during Polymer Flooding of Viscous Oils." M.S., New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technol-ogy. Socorro, New Mexico.

Liu, N., Li, L., and Lee, R. (2011). “Fabrica-tion of an integrated zeolite-fiber optical chemical sensor for detection of mercury (II) ion in water”, Sensors & Transducers Journal, 131,43-51.

Liu, Y. (2011). “Do HPAM Solutions Reduce Residual Oil Saturation during Polymer Flooding of Viscous Oils?” M.S., New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Socorro, New Mexico.

Muraleedharan, S., Liangxiong, L., and Balch, R.. (2011). "Prototype Design and Demonstration of Produced Water Purifica-tion at Wellhead Using Co-Produced Energy

Sources." Presented at the RPSEA small producer forum, Bakersfield, CA October 10, 2011; 2011 West Slope Colorado Oil & Gas Association's Environmental Summit, Grand Junction, CO October 27, 2011; and the RPSEA small producer forum, Lawrence, KS, November 8, 2011

Muraleedharan, S., Liangxiong, L., Balch, R., and Wan, H. (2011). “Effects of Salinity and Divalent Cations on Mechanical Degrada-tion of a New Sulfonic Associative Polymer." M.S., New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, New Mexico.

Xiao, C., Harris, M., Wang, F., and Grigg, R. (2011). “Field Testing and Numerical Simulation of Combined CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery and Storage in the SACROC Field.” Paper SPE 147544 presented at the Canadian Unconventional Resources Con-ference, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 15-17 November 2011.

Zhang, G., Olatuokunbo, O., Akanni, O., Seright, R., and Wang, D. (2011). “A Com-parison of Polymer Flooding With In-Depth Profile Modification.” Paper SPE CSUG/SPE 146087 presented at the Canadian Uncon-ventional Resources Conference, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 15–17 November 2011.

verifying siting requirements. The Pit Rules Mapping Portal is an application designed to provide data required by the NMOCD to process data for C-144 forms. A mapping por-tal is a computer mapping application that functions as an online geographi-cal information system (GIS), which displays spatial information on a map of the earth, rather than in tables and spreadsheets, and allows queries and statistical analyses that display the re-sults on a map. The Pit Rules Mapping Portal of-fers a wide selection of data needed for compliance, in acceptable automated online formats, allowing faster applica-tions without the necessity of expensive specialist surveys in most areas. An interactive, automated C-144 form is also available online, that can be filled out, with generated maps attached, saved as a PDF file, and submitted. With this application, producers and regulators both gain access to all required data, which allowed for faster application processing and reductions in delays.

A National Portal When the Portal first went online in 2009, it soon became apparent that us-ers were utilizing generated GIS soft-ware for non-Pit Rule purposes, such as pipeline routing and supplemental data for forms such as NEPAs for other regulatory agencies. The project was extended for an additional year to allow generation of a second generic regulatory data portal extending some of the utility of the Pit Rule portal nationwide and to imple-ment additional drawing and query tools. Mapped natural resources include: depth to water and ground water eleva-tion from USGS gauging stations; to-pography; aerial photos, digital eleva-tion models; surface geology; karsts; and surface water. In addition, the mapping portal includes spatial search capabilities that allow querying data to determine proximity of natural resourc-es to a subject site.

(cont'd from p. 1)Pecos River FloodplainsIn another part of the project, flood-plains were created for the entire stretch of the Pecos River in the state of New Mexico. FEMA flood plain maps of New Mexico are incomplete, posing difficul-ties for compliance with the Pit Rules C-144 form. A study of 100- and 500-year floodplains were considered for the Pecos river drainage as it impacts the Permian Basin in New Mexico. The entire stretch of the Pecos River in the state of New Mexico was analyzed and floodplain maps were calculated for the Pecos Drainage.

Results The results of this project have been well received at every Tech Transfer event, both for the Pit Rule Mapping Portal, but also for the National Map-ping Portal, prompting numerous sug-gestions of data to add to the database and utilities to add functionality. The effort to migrate the concept to a national framework showed that such software is not only useful but also highly desired by producers oper-ating at a scale that precludes internal environmental and/or geography de-partments. Researchers are confident that more work on the National Map-ping Portal will be useful to small pro-ducers across the nation.

Wellhead Desalination Unit“Cost-Effective Treatment of Pro-duced Water Using Co-Produced En-ergy Sources for Small Producers,” is

SWP's Phase II Ends, Meets Program Goals

a RPSEA-funded project whose key objective was to test a low tempera-ture, humidification-dehumidification (HDH) desalination unit for cleaning produced water at the wellhead. The water, after being cleaned, would be sufficiently free of hydro-carbon wastes to be reused in drilling, stimulating, or waterflooding. Other potential uses are in irrigation, tower cooling and chemical processing. In Phase I, a low-temperature unit with desalination capacity of 30 bbl/d was constructed, and in Phase II, the unit was demonstrated at a wellhead provided by industry partners. The HDH process was evaluated for its effectiveness and the unit was investigated for maximum productiv-ity under different configurations, with the ultimate goal of a process having maximum possible yield with the least operating cost. After evaluation, the process was found to work effectively, and estimated to have the capability to lower the cost of produced water processing—sometimes, dramatically (from ~$2.50/bbl to ~.79/bbl). Another aspect of this research identified the best energy source for powering the desalination unit. Since the process can operate at atmospheric pressure and relatively low tempera-ture (60–80°C), low-temperature heat sources like coproduced geothermal energy could be deployed for the de-salination process. Solar power was considered as an energy source, but for the actual test-ing, an electric steam generator was implemented to simulate the use of so-lar panels. Future Research PlansMore work is planned for both the mapping portal and the desalination unit. Research continues on the generic regulatory data portal, to make it more universally useful, and plans are under-way to further test and refine the desali-nation unit, conducting additional work on optimization, automation, scaling and introduction of solar panels.

The Pit Rule Mapping Portal with associated automated C-144 forms is located at http://ford.nmt.edu and the nationwide generalized regulatory data Mapping Portal, at http://saturn.nmt.edu.

The Southwest Regional Partnership on Carbon Se-questration (SWP), led by New Mexico Tech and one of seven regional partnerships sponsored by the US-DOE, recently concluded its successful Phase II Car-bon Sequestration Field Demonstration Project. The SWP carried out five field pilot tests, com-prising three geologic pilot tests and two terrestrial pilot programs, to validate the most promising se-questration technologies and infrastructure concepts. This field testing demonstrated the efficacy of proposed sequestration technologies to reduce or off-set greenhouse gas emissions in the region. Risk mit-igation, optimization of monitoring, verification, and accounting (MVA) protocols, and effective outreach and communication were additional critical goals of these field validation tests. The program included geologic pilot tests located in Utah, New Mexico, and Texas, as well as a region-wide terrestrial analysis. Each geologic sequestration test site was intended to include injection of a mini-mum of ~75,000 tons/year CO2, with minimum injec-

tion duration of one year. These pilots represent medium-scale validation tests in sinks that host capacity for possible larger-scale sequestration operations in the future. These validation tests also demonstrated a broad variety of carbon sink targets and multiple value-add-ed benefits, including testing of enhanced oil recovery and sequestration, enhanced coalbed methane pro-duction and a geologic sequestration test combined with a local terrestrial sequestration pilot. The regional terrestrial sequestration demonstra-tion was focused on improved terrestrial MVA meth-ods and reporting approaches specific for the South-west region. A number of DOE’s Program Goal-Related Con-clusions were reached in Phase II for verification of storage capacity and containment, best practices, in-jectivity and capacity, storage permanence, risk as-sessment, successful outreach and education meth-ods, budget development, and Workgroup Team/Leader selection.