Browsing by Subject "Oil"
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Item A top-injection bottom-production cyclic steam stimulation method for enhanced heavy oil recovery(Texas A&M University, 2006-10-30) Matus, Eric RobertA novel method to enhance oil production during cyclic steam injection has been developed. In the Top-Injection and Bottom-Production (TINBOP) method, the well contains two strings separated by two packers (a dual and a single packer): the short string (SS) is completed in the top quarter of the reservoir, while the long string (LS) is completed in the bottom quarter of the reservoir. The method requires an initial warm-up stage where steam is injected into both strings for 21 days; then the LS is opened to production while the SS continues to inject steam for 14 days. After the initial warm-up, the following schedule is repeated: the LS is closed and steam is injected in the SS for 21 days; then steam injection is stopped and the LS is opened to production for 180 days. There is no soak period. Simulations to compare the performance of the TINBOP method against that of a conventional cyclic steam injector (perforated across the whole reservoir) have been made. Three reservoir types were simulated using 2-D radial, black oil models: Hamaca (9????API), San Ardo (12????API) and the SPE fourth comparative solution project (14????API). For the first two types, a 20x1x20 10-acre model was used that incorporated typical rock and fluid properties for these fields. Simulation results indicate oil recovery after 10 years was 5.7-27% OIIP with TINBOP, that is 57-93% higher than conventional cyclic steam injection (3.3-14% OIIP). Steam-oil ratios were also decreased with TINBOP (0.8-3.1%) compared to conventional (1.2-5.3%), resulting from the improved reservoir heating efficiency.Item A boom for whom? : gender, labor, and community in a modern day oil boomtown(2015-08) Kilanski, Kristine Michelle; Williams, Christine L., 1959-; Auyero, Javier; Hartigan, John; Muller, Chandra; Rudrappa, SharmilaThis dissertation examines women’s job opportunities in a 21st century boomtown. Between 2009 and 2014, "Boomville" experienced rapid economic and population growth in response to increased hydraulic fracturing activity in the region. Throughout this period, women were far less likely than men to move to Boomville, join the paid labor force, and enter the fastest growing sectors of Boomville's economy. Drawing on six months of ethnographic fieldwork, interviews with 49 women, and interviews with community "experts," my dissertation seeks to explain women's underrepresentation in the oil & gas industry and other manual labor sectors, Boomville's regional labor market, and the community at-large --and in doing so, to reveal the complex role of gender in shaping the distribution of job opportunities in a rapidly expanding economy centered on oil and gas extraction. I document variation in women’s perceptions of job opportunities and barriers in Boomville, workforce experiences, and discourses. My dissertation contributes to an understanding of women's experiences in natural resource communities as well as the mechanisms and factors that contribute to gender segregation and gender inequality in the formal paid labor force.Item China's international quest for oil security(2006-05) Kimball, Jeremy Martin; Groat, Charles G.China's flourishing economy depends upon access to and greater use of energy resources, especially oil. Consequently, energy security has become of paramount importance to the Chinese government. China, however, perceives a reliance on international oil markets as dangerous and also considers itself vulnerable to the United States, which could conceivably restrict oil imports to China in a time of conflict. In order to enhance China's energy security, Chinese oil companies have sought to obtain oil resources throughout the world, and Beijing has cultivated closer relations with various oil-producing nations. China's heightened demand for oil and its efforts to secure access to oil resources are worrisome to the United States. Fears largely stem from the idea that increased consumption by both the United States and China will inevitably lead to fiercer competition between the two nations and result in a zero-sum game in which a gain for one country comes at the expense of the other country. Anxiety in the United States also is based upon the notion that, as China exerts greater influence around the world through its economic expansion and as it establishes closer bonds with oil-producing nations, China will undermine American interests and foreign policy objectives. Not all concerns regarding China are inflated, but many of them are. Indeed, China's rise will pose certain challenges to American influence and supremacy in some regions, and China's relationships with states that the United States would like to isolate are troublesome. It is important, however, for the United States to be selective in its criticisms of China. Unsubstantiated apprehension will lead to counter-productive policies with respect to China, which, in turn, will alienate China and render other attempts to support American interests fruitless. China's acquisitions of oil resources do not inherently contravene American energy security interests. Thus, the United States should not fret about China's pursuit of oil. The United States should continually reaffirm its professed faith in free markets, including their ability to provide energy security, and in that way allay Chinese concerns about its own vulnerability. If the United States can set aside its uneasiness about China's quest for oil, it can more effectively address Chinese actions that directly and negatively affect American interests and also recognize that opportunities for mutual gain and cooperation abound.Item Crude oil pricing : the role of speculation in the futures market(2012-05) Yan, Michael Hall; Shively, Thomas S.; Sager, TomThis paper is intended to better understand the effects of speculation on crude oil prices. While speculation has many benefits such as increasing market liquidity and bearing market risks that other wish to offset, speculation can also create unwanted market volatility and economic bubbles. During the past decade, crude oil prices have been extremely volatile causing increased controversy between investors and regulators regarding the role that oil speculation has played in the price of crude oil. This report examines the relationship between crude oil spot and futures prices to determine the role arbitragers, speculators, and hedgers have had in crude oil pricing.Item Drugs and oil flow through the Eagle Ford Shale(2014-05) Marks, Michael Perry; Todd, RussellThis report is a work of original reporting which investigates the proliferation of drug use and drug trafficking in the Eagle Ford Shale, a region of heavy oil and gas development in South Texas. Since 2008, the Eagle Ford Shale has seen an influx of people, money, and new infrastructure. This has created a "perfect storm" for drug traffickers. The region is historically poor and sparsely populated, and local law enforcement agencies find themselves unprepared to handle the growing drug problem in their communities.Item The effect of crude oil and chemical dispersant on sinking rates of Gulf of Mexico diatoms(2015-12) Oh, Genesok; Villareal, Tracy Alan; Buskey, Edward J; Liu, ZhanfeiIn the open and coastal ocean, primary productivity is derived largely from phytoplankton. Diatoms are a major group of phytoplankton that account for almost half of all oceanic primary production. Sinking is a fundamental aspect of diatom ecology usually linked to loss process but is important in vertical migration for nutrient uptake, avoidance of predators, and completion of lifecycle events. Sinking is tightly linked to both physiological state and size of diatom cells. Oil spills are one of the many stressors now evident in the marine environment. Since diatom physiology is generally adversely affected by crude oil in the form of growth inhibition, reduced photosynthesis, and cell death, it was hypothesized that diatom sinking would be adversely affected by the addition of crude oil, and that increasing concentration, time, and the addition of chemical dispersant would magnify this effect. There has been no previous study attempting to quantify how diatom sinking is affected by the presence of crude oil and chemical dispersant. In this study, laboratory cultures of diatom species were experimentally treated with crude oil, dispersant, and a mixture that was filmed at three timepoints over the course of a week. Images were processed with ImageJ to quantify individual trajectories. There were 20-50 cells examined per treatment, with a goal of 50 observed cells. Killed cells showed higher average sinking rates (C. wailesii=93.7 ± 32.9 m day-1, H. cuneformis= 22.9 ± 5.37 m day-1) than the highest observed treatment (C. wailesii=65.9 ± 26.9 m day-1, H. cuneformis=20 ± 5.66 m day-1). There was no clear trend of increased mean sinking rate with respect to treatment or time. Clear doseresponse curves for sinking were not evident. Skewness and kurtosis was calculated for each treatment to examine changes in the frequency distributions of sinking rate histograms, and compared to the controls to observe any patterns of change in central tendency or kurtosis. There was no trend with respect to skewness or kurtosis, although the data suggests there may be species-specific differences in response in H. cuneformis and Skeletonema spp. treatments, where one side of the skewness axis was favored. The data suggests that exposure to crude oil and chemical dispersant does not elicit a clear increase in sinking rate. If these results can be generalized to the field, then diatom population changes after an oil spill is likely not due to major changes in sinking losses.Item Essays on Efficiency of the Farm Credit System and Dynamic Correlations in Fossil Fuel Markets(2012-11-28) Dang, Trang Phuong Th 1977-Markets have always changed in response to either exogenous or endogenous shocks. Many large events have occurred in financial and energy markets the last ten years. This dissertation examines market behavior and volatility in agricultural credit and fossil fuel markets under exogenous and endogenous changes in the last ten years. The efficiency of elements within the United States Farm Credit System, a major agricultural lender in the United States, and the dynamic correlation between coal, oil and natural gas prices, the three major fossil fuels, are examined. The Farm Credit system is a key lender in the U.S. agricultural sector, and its performance can influence the performance of the agricultural sector. However, its efficiency in providing credit to the agricultural sector has not been recently examined. The first essay of the dissertation provides assessments on the performance of elements within the Farm Credit System by measuring their relative efficiency using a stochastic frontier model. The second essay addresses the changes in relationship in coal, oil, and natural gas markets with respect to changes and turbulence in the last decade, which has also not been fully addressed in literature. The updated assessment on the relative performance of entities within the Farm Credit System provides information that the Farm Credit Administration and U.S. policy makers can use in their management of and policy toward the Farm Credit System. The measurement of the changes in fossil fuel markets? relationships provides implications for energy investment, energy portfolio anagement, energy risk management, and energy security. It can also be used as a foundation for structuring forecasting models and other models related to energy markets. The dynamic correlations between coal, oil, and natural gas prices are examined using a dynamic conditional correlation multivariate autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (MGARCH DCC) model. The estimated results show that the FCS?s five banks and associations with large assets have more efficiently produced credit to the U.S. agricultural sector than smaller sized associations. Management compensation is found to be positively associated with the system?s efficiency. More capital investment and monitoring along with possible consolidation are implied for smaller sized associations to enhance efficiency. On average, the results show that the efficiency of the associations is increasing over time while the average efficiency of the five large banks is more stable. Overall, the associations exhibit a higher variation of efficiency than the five banks. In terms of energy markets the estimates from the MGARCH DCC model indicate significant and changing dynamic correlations and related volatility between the coal, oil, and natural gas prices. The coal price was found to experience more volatility and become more closely related to oil and natural gas prices in recent periods. The natural gas price was found to become more stable and drift away from its historical relationship with oil.Item Essays on Oil, Energy, and Oil Self-Sufficiency in the U.S.(2013-09-30) Rowland, Christopher ScottWhen oil prices rise, politicians often call for improvements in energy efficiency or policies that they hope will make the U.S. more ?energy independent.? The argument is that if we consume less oil, domestic supplies will constitute a larger portion of U.S. quantity demanded, mitigating our dependence on potentially unreliable foreign oil sources, thereby lessening U.S. exposure to volatile supply/price fluctuations. Three interrelated issues are addressed in this dissertation. First, the drivers and substitution patterns in U.S. oil demand are explored using structural demand system analysis for energy in the U.S. Second, world oil supply is estimated using the cost structure of world oil reservoirs, which principally depend on reservoir characteristics. Models of both supply and demand yield insight into the feasibility and unintended outcomes of policies or technological advances that reduce oil demand. Finally, the U.S. autarky equilibrium price at the intersection of the U.S. supply and demand curves is considered. Inferences on the economic feasibility for the U.S. to strive towards self-sufficiency in oil are examined including the vulnerability premium associated with national security concerns. The demand model demonstrates that U.S. oil demand is explained as a system of demands for energy, where individuals are committed in the short run to minimum quantities of consumption. In the context of pre-commitments, oil is found to have a higher own-price elasticity (more elastic) at average than is commonly found in the literature. Oil is further demonstrated to be a compliment for natural gas and electricity, and a substitute for coal. Oil production costs and quantities are heavily dependent upon reservoir geology, which has a fixed dispersion around the world. Using this premise, a supply curve composed of world oil reservoirs is generated. Scenario analysis on different world oil demand reductions suggests there are unintended costs of reducing oil demand. Oil producing countries will experience smaller gross domestic products from diminished oil production. Smaller gross domestic products may affect the countries? political stability. The world oil supply curve and cross price elasticities from the demand model are considered together under the most likely scenario of a fall in world oil demand stemming from a 2.5% decrease in U.S. oil demand. These results are used to consider unintended consequences of changes in U.S. oil demand in attempts to achieve or pursue ?energy independence.? These results include the impact on coal, natural gas, and electricity demand; the required change in gasoline demand that could precipitate a 2.5% change in oil demand; the change in U.S. GDP; the change in U.S. ?energy independence? and; the change in political stability of oil producing nations. U.S. supply and demand curves for oil will not intersect in the short run with current technology. The implication is that the vulnerability premium for oil would need to be infinite to justify U.S. self-sufficiency in oil. The U.S., therefore, should not strive towards energy independence in oil.Item An examination of state regulations of hydraulic fracturing(2014-08) Perkins, Adam Reed; Olmstead, Sheila M.As hydraulic fracturing gains popularity in the energy industry, the state of Texas finds itself in a very advantageous position. With multiple regions which could have great potential for oil and natural gas extractable via the production technique, Texas has assumed a new importance for the energy industry. However, in order to fully utilize its advantages, the state of Texas should revise its oil and gas regulations, particularly with regard to groundwater use and contamination, air emissions, and discretion for municipal regulation of oil and gas operations, insofar as they may apply to hydraulic fracturing. This course of action only will this allow the state to efficiently utilize the production method while better balancing against the technique's risks.Item Fundamental study of hydrophobic microporous membrane contactors for the recovery of insoluble oil from oil-water mixtures(2016-05) Mercelat, Aurore Yvonne Joelle; Katz, Lynn Ellen; Seibert, Frank; Kinney, Kerry A.; Lawler, Desmond F; Freeman, Benny DInsoluble oil and water mixtures occur in many industries such as food, metallurgical, or biofuel production. In particular, as we strive to meet global energy demands, the associated risks and waste management of the oil and gas industry must be addressed. Technologies capable of separating oil and water efficiently are needed for the treatment of highly variable oil and gas streams such as produced and flowback waters or oil spills. The goal of this doctoral work was to advance the understanding of a membrane contactor process for the recovery of insoluble oil from water. The hydrophobic hollow fiber membrane had been successfully tested in our laboratories for oil recovery from algae slurries. However, a thorough study to understand the fundamental mechanisms of the separation process was necessary for engineering design and process optimization. First, pure oil experiments were performed to define baseline performance attainable with the studied membrane contactors. Then, oil-water separation experiments were conducted to quantify the effect of key operating parameters. Two relevant ranges of oil feed concentration were identified. For high oil feed concentration, increases in transmembrane pressure and influent flow rate were confirmed to increase oil flux, while higher viscosity lowered oil permeation across the fiber walls. However, an important finding was that, for dilute mixtures, decreases in transmembrane pressure and higher viscosity increased oil permeation. The results of this research support the conclusion that oil separation within the particular geometry and design of the membrane contactor is due to both internal coalescence of oil droplets and selective permeation of oil over water. The stability of an oil film on the fibers was critical to enhance effective surface area of the membrane contactor. In addition, the technology showed great promise for long-term high oil removal with no signs of viscous fouling as often observed in hydrophilic membranes. Finally, a model describing the process was developed and can be used as a guideline for membrane sizing and process engineering design.Item Let them eat war : the effect of the Libyan Arab Spring on Texas' oil field economy(2012-05) Badlissi, Frederick Joseph; Todd, Russell G.; Alves, Rosental C.At the beginning of 2011, independence movements arose across the Middle East and stoked the fires of revolution in nations like Libya, Egypt and Syria. Colloquially known as “The Arab Spring,” the movement toppled dictatorships that had existed for decades. Those dictatorships also provided stability for foreign business conducted in their countries, including Texan oil field companies. But as civil unrest persists and the political story unfolds, Texan oil field companies continue to do business in the region, largely unabated. This report addresses the effects of the Arab Spring on the performance of select Texan oil field companies operating in Libya.Item Making of The Color of Oil: a contemporary pattern for unleashing the potential of science and technology journalism(Texas A&M University, 2006-04-12) Oligney, Ronald EugeneIdeologies, intellectually and religiously driven, color both politics and economics. The relationship between government and the governed, human rights and the rule of law all are affected by such ideologies. However, unless humans are willing to change dramatically lifestyles honed in hundreds of years of historic developments, energy and energy abundance are arguably the most critical needs of modern society. In many ways energy has transcended ideology although there are still unrepentant ideologues advocating otherwise. It was this realization, augmented by a few events, that brought about the writing of The Color of Oil. The authors felt a need to combat popular errors being promulgated by the media in an area of such great importance to the entire human enterprise: Energy. A nonsensical 1999 cover story by the usually reliable Economist magazine provided the last straw. Someone had to set the record straight. But the dour-to-hostile climate that surrounded oil and energy at the turn of the century presented certain challenges to getting the work published. As it turned out, the unique qualifications of a science and technology journalist, the author of this thesis, played a key role in making the publication a reality, and then a phenomenon of sorts. In some ways, The Color of Oil suggests a meaningful new role for science and technology journalism and journalists in a media environment driven by movie stars and media profits. The book was produced on a short timeline and with limited resources. The book's message has played a role in key political decisions in the United States and around the world; as a direct result of the book, the authors were invited and participated extensively in development of energy policy in Texas and at the national level. It has effected billions of dollars of commercial enterprise, providing as it did the blueprint for development of Cheniere Energy, Inc., a $2 billion Houston company that today is one of North America's premier LNG receiving companies. And testimonies from readers of The Color of Oil suggest that the book has produced meaningful personal wealth for many of its 30,000-plus readers.Item Nikolai Baibakov : Soviet economic planning and its legacy in the Russian oil industry(2011-12) Kaufman, Jay Lawrence; Wynn, Charters, 1953-; Moser, RobertNikolai Baibakov was a key individual in the Soviet Union. His background as an oil engineer in the Baku region during the 1930s and his exploits as a deputy commissar for oil during the Second World War led to his appointment as the chief of the central economic planning organ of the USSR, Gosplan. In this post, he shaped the economy of his country in accordance with the political priorities of its leaders, often despite contradicting domestic economic realities. As a faithful communist, Baibakov’s advocacy of centralized planning in a command economy lasted his entire life, but it also cost him his job when Gorbache v started to steer the USSR in the direction of perestroika in 1985. In the aftermath of the break-up of the USSR and the subsequent privatization of its industries under Yeltsin, Baibakov remained a committed advocate of centralized planning, especially for the oil sector. His policies and ideological perspectives regarding oil as national security resource were vindicated under President Vladimir Putin at the beginning of the 21st century.Item The paradox of renter's insurance : resource stabilization funds in Venezuela and Chile(2010-12) Johnson, Matthew Alan; Madrid, Raúl L.; Weyland, KurtThis report, rooted in the conflict over the control of natural resource wealth, departs from the widely-accepted findings of two disparate literatures. First, while recent analyses correctly conclude that natural resources rents play a contingent role in development, this study deviates from the conventional wisdom attributing the variation of the resource curse to formal institutions. Secondly, as opposed to the recent wave of “political insurance” arguments that ascribe the creation of reforms to weak incumbents attempting to tie the hands of their successors, I argue that actors pursue similar institutional reforms for economic and political reasons. I build on these literatures by examining the commitment to a specific government institution—stabilization funds, which manage the fluctuations of natural resource rents and stop natural resource wealth from being a curse—across three natural resource-rich Latin American countries: Chile, Mexico and Venezuela. Paradoxically, because successful stabilization funds provide greater political benefits when rents are saved, I argue that these institutions only tie the hands of political successors from using rents for political purposes when they are created for economic purposes.Item Petropolitics and foreign policy : fiscal and institutional origins and patterns of Russian foreign policy, 1964-2012(2014-08) Weber, Yuval; Trubowitz, Peter; Moser, Robert G., 1966-Russian foreign policy from the mid-1960s has vacillated between periods of expansion and retrenchment in which the military and diplomatic reach of the state has extended to continents or been retracted to very modest conceptions of national defense. During this period, the financial centrality of energy exports has come to dominate the Russian economy, leading scholars and observers to draw a causal link between the two: as energy revenues go up, expansionism does as well, while declines in revenues lead Russia to behave less assertively. This dissertation outlines an alternative argument for petrostate foreign policy in which positive or negative revenue environments determine the menu of policy options available to policymakers, but that internal politics determine the content of those foreign policy choices. I argue that foreign policy choices are conditional on the mediating political institutions and circumstances existing at the time of booms and busts, namely that how energy revenue shocks affect foreign policy decision-making in a petrostate after a revenue shock depends on the political environment before the shock. The petropolitics foreign policy theory thus provides insight as to when the expansionism might occur. By focusing on revenue yet allowing politicians to retain agency, this “petropolitics” foreign policy theory links structural theories of foreign policy to leadership-driven models of political decision-making. This petropolitics theory then reassesses Russian foreign policy by analyzing leadership tenures from Leonid Brezhnev to Vladimir Putin. I show that Soviet expansionism in the Third World in the 1970s was not simply because of a positive revenue shock, but because of Brezhnev’s political weakness after his installation in a palace coup. Similarly, I show that Mikhail Gorbachev’s retrenchment of foreign policy commitments arose not solely from a lack of energy revenues, but from his political strength in light of the poor performance of his predecessors. Finally, I show that Vladimir Putin’s selective expansionism and retrenchment emerges in a skillful consolidation of domestic political strength, a fortuitous influx of energy revenues, and a willingness to change foreign policy strategies to serve a single preference of maintaining power.Item The political logic of renter’s insurance : the resource curse, institutions, and the foundations of institutional strength in Latin America(2012-08) Johnson, Matthew Alan; Weyland, Kurt Gerhard; Madrid, Raúl L.; Hunter, Wendy; McDonald, Patrick; Greene, KennethWhat effects do natural resources, and more specifically the revenues from the extraction and sales of commodities, have on the economies of well-endowed countries in Latin America? How does the political administration of natural resource wealth affect the economic trajectories of these developing countries? Under what conditions do countries successfully use political institutions to administer natural resource windfalls prudently? My dissertation addresses these questions and ultimately explains why natural resource wealth is a blessing for the development of some countries and a curse for others. Specifically, I examine the effectiveness of specific government institutions—called Nonrenewable Resource Stabilization Funds (NRSFs or stabilization funds), which help countries to manage the economic challenges associated with relying upon volatile natural resource revenues—in Chile and Venezuela, two natural resource-rich Latin American countries. Although both of these countries created a NRSF, Chile’s has been very successful while Venezuela’s was extremely weak from the outset. My research suggests that the degree of stabilization fund success—which impacts the severity of the resource curse—depends on these institutions constraining political actors from using rents for venal purposes. In turn, I find that the capacity of NRSFs to restrain the passions of self-interested executives is largely a product of the circumstances accompanying the creation of these institutions; that is, the conditions into which these institutions are born impact stabilization fund performance, but not in the way that the traditional literature predicts. In contrast to extant explanations suggesting that NRSF success is dependent upon clear institutional rules or general state capacity, I find that stabilization funds tend to be unsuccessful when political needs drove their creation while these institutions are likely to function well when economic concerns were the impetus for their adoption. I substantiate the case study evidence of Chile and Venezuela with a broad statistical analysis of 20 other countries that have created NRSFs.Item Using huff n' puff with a recycled hydrocarbon gas as a means for enhancing oil recovery in a liquid-rich shale reservoir(2016-08) Isbell, Jordan Taylor; Mohanty, Kishore Kumar; Okuno, RyosukeIn recent years, production in unconventional reservoirs has increased exponentially due to technological breakthroughs in horizontal well completions. However, even with new technology, ultimate recovery after primary production in these reservoirs is extremely low (5-10% of original oil in place). The huff n’ puff process is considered to be a strong candidate for enhancing these notoriously-low recovery factors in unconventional reservoirs, especially those that are liquid-rich, in a cost-effective manner. Huff n’ puff is an enhanced oil recovery method in which one well alternates between injection, soaking, and production. Gas injection is often used in this scenario because of its high injectivity compared to water and its ability to develop miscibility with the reservoir oil. In this work, a recycled hydrocarbon gas was used due to its ease of accessibility within the target reservoir. In this work, the application of huff n’ puff to a liquid-rich shale reservoir with nanodarcy-range permeability was investigated both experimentally and numerically. A completely unique experimental setup was fabricated in order to execute oil recovery experiments on preserved core plugs taken from the target reservoir. In these experiments, it was shown that significant amounts of oil could be recovered after two huff n’ puff cycles lasting approximately one day each. Using propane as the injection gas resulted in higher recoveries when compared to the recycled gas due to enhanced miscibility with the oil. It was also shown that the ratio between soaking pressure and production pressure is a significant factor in recovering oil via huff n’ puff. An additional cycle was run with a longer soaking time, but no additional oil was recovered. A set of numerical reservoir models was also created to further investigate the recovery mechanisms in the huff n’ puff process. Lab-scale models were created in an attempt to replicate the experimental findings. The results showed that the recoveries seen in the experiments and simulations were very similar. Also, as long as injection took place above MMP, it was shown that the gas and oil mixed similarly in all cases regardless of pressure. Furthermore, lower production pressures allowed for more gas expansion and therefore better recovery, proving that production pressure alone may be an important parameter rather than the ratio between production and injection pressures. Field-scale models were also created. These models also showed that gas expansion plays a significant role in recovering oil. However, there were several key differences associated with sweep efficiency and the use of live oil versus dead oil.