The South Cowden Unit was selected for one of three mid-term field demonstration projects being conducted under the DOE Class II Oil Program for shallow-shelf carbonate reservoirs. The South Cowden project is designed to demonstrate the technical and economic viability of using horizontal CO2 injection wells and centralization of surface facilities to optimize CO2 project economics. If successful, this approach will help to improve the economic viability and application of CO2 flooding for many smaller fields which might otherwise soon face abandonment.

Successful design and implementation of the project requires a focused, cost-effective reservoir characterization effort to identify those reservoir characteristics and field areas best suited to application of this technology. Integration of production and well test data with geologic reservoir description information was necessary to develop a sufficient understanding of the permeability distribution at South Cowden. A predictive history matching approach was used in modeling historical field performance to further refine the reservoir description.

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