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IFP chief says industry's key challenges are fossil-energy supply, climate change

Oil & Gas Journal

Advances in enhanced-recovery techniques can boost the average recovery factor for conventional deposits from 35% at present to 50% by about 2020, he believes. The improvement will raise conventional reserves by 110 billion tonnes in existing fields and by 40 billion tonnes in fields yet to be discovered.

Technology also can increase the recovery factor for nonconventional heavy oils, now 8-10%. IFP estimates volumes of extra-heavy oils and tar sands in place at 685 billion tonnes of oil equivalent.
"We may consider that potential recoverable reserves of Alberta in Canada and the Orinoco belt in Venezuela may be the equivalent to present Middle East reserves," Appert says. "That's why we consider that technology may push the limits of oil reserves and improve the available reserves of petroleum product by a factor of three or four."

Appert notes that the two energy-market sectors most closely linked with economic growth—energy for electricity generation and oil for transportation—have the most rapid demand growth and highest emissions of greenhouse gases.
And their inherent challenges differ. For electricity, the main hurdle is investment; for oil in transportation, it's the natural limit of supply.
Although hydrogen holds promise, the IFP chief says, it won't be widely available for transportation "for decades."