Improved Oil Recovery
Definition - What does Improved Oil Recovery mean?
Improved Oil Recovery is a process of increasing the production of crude oil and other hydrocarbons from an oil or a gas well once the production starts declining. The procedures that are used in the process are the same as those used in enhanced oil recovery and thus improved oil recovery methodology is at times also referred to as enhanced oil recovery.
Petropedia explains Improved Oil Recovery
Each oil field typically contributes 40% of the oil and gas production, which is an average amount. However, there are certain techniques that can be employed to extract all the crude oil from the reserves without losing it. These techniques are known as improved oil recovery and enhanced oil recovery and they are used to enhance the recovery factor of the crude oil and improve the production of an oil well. There are basically three major techniques used in enhanced oil recovery, i.e., chemical injection, gas injection and thermal injection. Gas injection method is the most used technique, followed by thermal injection and chemical injection.