Research, Development and Innovation
RD&I is an important aspect to Sião success. We have numerous projects under development in order to enhance our solutions, and to also lead the next generation of solutions for heavy oil, tubular products and equipment. Through our partnerships with leading Brazilian and overseas research centers, we are poised to be on the cutting edge of oil & gas innovation for the foreseeable future.
Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR)
Unlike natural gas, the recovery of petroleum oil is not efficient. The existing conventional oil production technologies are able to recover only about one-half of the oil originally in place in a reservoir of light oil. For heavy oil, the recovery is often less than 10%. To improve oil recovery, a variety of supplemental recovery techniques, such as water/steam flooding which involves injection of water/steam through well bores into the oil reservoir, have been used.
One problem commonly encountered with water flooding operations is poor sweep efficiency of injection water. Poor sweep efficiency occurs when water preferentially channels through highly permeable zones of the oil reservoir as it travels from the injection well to the production well, thus bypassing less permeable oil-bearing strata. Oil in the less permeable zones is thus not recovered. Recovery may be enhanced by the effects of microorganisms. MEOR uses microorganisms such as bacterial and archaea to dislodge the micro-trapped or adsorbed oil from the rock, and-or forming bioplugs to reduce channeling to improve sweep efficiency.
In partnership with IFES (Federal Institute of Espírito Santo) Sião studies a new, efficient, economical and environmentally safe microbial method to enhance oil recovery.
The RD&I Responsabilities
- Develop new technologies for Heavy Oil first;
- Research into new QHSE cost-effective solutions;
- Positively Impact Community;
- Positioning Sião as etical-innovative;
- Intelectual Property Management;
- Effectively Manage resources.