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Crude oil is currently removed as "primary recovery", "secondary recovery", and tertiary recovery"

In Primary Recovery, all that is required is to sink a well into the reservoir and the pressure of the material above it will force the oil up the well pipe. This is the type of recovery associated with the "gusher well". Even if a well isn't a gusher, it can still be pumped up from the reservoir until the pressure drops too low.

In Secondary Recovery, the pressure in the well is increased by injecting something into the well such as steam, liquid water, natural gas, air or carbon dioxide. The injection occurs at the edge and/or bottom of the reservoir so as to cause the pressure to force the oil ahead of it towards the recovery well bore. Depending on what is injected, the injected material can also lower the viscosity of the oil and aid it in migrating towards the recovery well bore (which would actually be more a tertiary recovery method), but if the main purpose of injection is to boost the pressure, it is still considered secondary recovery.

In Tertiary Recovery, materials are injected into the well mainly to alter the physical properties of the oil, especially the surface tension, in order to get the oil to not stick as much to the matrix of the reservoir and to move more easily through it towards the recovery well. When steam is injected, the heat lowers the viscosity of the oil to make it flow more easily. Surfactant solutions can also be injected to lower the surface tension of the oil. and un-stick it from the reservoir matrix. Carbon dioxide flooding both thins out the oil (lower viscosity) and lowers the surface tension. A newer method is bio-flooding where specially designed microbes are injected with the water. The microbes attack the heavier molecules in the oil and break them down into smaller molecules, which makes the oil less viscous, and incidentally of greater value - gasoline, which is mostly lower weight hydrocarbons, sells for more than tar and asphalt, which are higher weight hydrocarbons.

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15y ago

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