The hot topic today in the Permian Basin is producing oil from carbonate formations without mobile oil.  It sounds implausible but the reality today is that there are two ways of doing this:

1.  using EOR techniques to release the residual oil and
2.  to drill the zones horizontally and depressure gassy residual oil.

The common element involved in the two ways of commercializing this residual oil is the knowledge of where the residual oil zones are located along with understanding the properties of the reservoir and oil.  The guide to the required information comes from the recent research conducted by the ROZ team led by Melzer Consulting.  It is a new revolutionary age and Melzer Consulting can help you screen and optimize your projects to be part of it whether you are interested in horizontal wells or EOR.

And it is not just the Permian Basin that has this opportunity.  Recent work suggests the ROZs are ready for prime time in the Williston Basin and the intermountain basins in the Rockies.  Melzer Consulting is the perfect advisor to evaluate your ROZ project.

Melzer Biography

Steve is a geological engineer with a 30-year background in oil and gas exploration, production and consulting. He has performed research both within the oil and gas industry and with the Departments of Energy and Defense. His particular areas of expertise involve reservoir characterization, the science and commercial exploitation of residual oil zones (ROZs, CO₂flood performance, CO₂ geologic sequestration, CO₂ policy, and CO₂business planning.

He has served as the Director for the Petroleum Industry Alliance, a research organization which is a part of the University of Texas System, and is the former president of the Applied Petroleum Technology Academy (http://www.aptapb.org/), a non-profit organization dedicated to training and transferring technology specifically related to recovering more oil from mature oil fields and finding new methods of exploiting residual oil zones (aka depressuring or dewatering). He has advised the State of Texas on the FutureGen Project for Texas while serving on the Governor’s Advisory Board. He has been the managing director for the annual CO₂ Flooding Conference held each December in Midland, Texas for its twenty years of service to the worldwide CO₂ industry.

In 1997 he formed Melzer Consulting to advise companies of the multifaceted business issues of CO₂ and to assist customers in gaining an understanding of the complex CO₂ marketplace. This work led him to study the origins of the thick intervals below the oil/water contacts now known as residual oil zones (ROZs).  Not only can these exist beneath oilfields but also can be found between fields (greenfields).  These greenfields are now being exploited by horizontal drilling via depressuring the interval (DUROZ). This causes some of the oil to be produced by breaking out of the entrained gas.  With the right properties of the reservoir and oil, this can now be shown to be commercial even at sub $45/bbl oil prices

He has authored many reports, papers and articles; the most recent work dealing with the exciting opportunities many fields and between fields in recovering oil by CO₂ flooding while storing CO₂ from surface emission streams of CO₂. The ability to commercially produce oil via horizontal drilling of the ROZ intervals is now underway and could also provide a “bridge” for wider application of CO₂ EOR and carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS).  His list of clients includes many major and large independent oil companies, the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense, The University of Texas, and several CO₂ flooding. capture, processing, and transportation companies.

Education

Melzer has a BS in geological engineering from Texas A&M University and a MS in Engineering from Purdue University.