First-Principles Performance Verification of Gas-Solar Thermal Projects for Enhanced Oil Recovery

Tertiary oil recovery (TOR) is also called enhanced oil recovery. It is an industrial process used to extract additional crude oil that is difficult to extract using normal lifting techniques. Our study focuses on the use of solar thermal systems in Oman for sustainable oil recovery in Oman. In the presented solar thermal steam generation systems, arrays of parabolic troughs that are protected within glass houses are used to produce process steam for thermal oil recovery. The covered solar thermal systems in enhanced oil recovery are (1) Amal I, (2) Amal II, and (3) Miraah. Amal is the name of the oil field, which, when pronounced in Arabic, gives the meaning “hope”. Miraah is the name of the oil field, which, when pronounced in Arabic, gives the meaning “mirror”. These solar thermal steam generation systems can generate more than 2000 tonnes of steam per day, leading to a large reduction in the consumption of natural gas for fossil-based steam generation. We apply first principles and verify the heat demands and the carbon dioxide avoidance.