mobility control is and always be a problem in co2 eor    we havent ever really solved the relatively easier problem of mobility control in water displacing oil    oil producers are generally just too greedy to do so at a reasonable rate (with few exceptions)   recovery of the potential reserves published remains a distant dream    my experinece with doe sponsored projects is that they generate a lot of paper  (puffery if you will), profits for the contractor and limited results   i am not saying these solutions will never be found    just a distant dream    i commend you on your research of the subject and the effort you have put into it
Nice! Have you been around for long, Elwood? Tell us more.

Elwood, you are right about the engineering problems. But, I'm not sure that greed completely describes why operators are in a hurry. The unfortunate reality of raising money for projects demands that the bankers and investors see a quick recovery of the money invested and a quick profit. Plus there are opportunity costs-if an operator can only operate so many wells efficently they will sell the dogs and keep the cash cows, so strippers end up being owned by former field personel who can't raise money from 30-something bankers.

You're very right about the DOE projects. Did you ever look at the fireflood at Saratoga, Hardin County, Texas operated by Mobil? Plunging oil prices in the late '80s did for that one.

oldmanbob  er i mean oilmanbob  -   no i havent looked at that one   the only fireflood i am (vaguely) familiar with is the medicine pole hills field in bowman county north dakota   i believe that was a qualified success  but again this was in the mid 80's   today is a whole new world     there has been some work done and  recently revived on fireflooding coal seams  for the recovery of ng     this is more up my current alley
Saratoga is a piercement salt dome about 40 miles northwest and about of Beaumont and about 70 miles northwest of Houston. It was one of the first Gulf Coast fields (1902) and has produced around 160 million barrels from miocene sands over the caprock and frio and yegua sands pinching out against the flanks. I don't know of any Wilcox there, but its certainly on trend.
  There are a huge number of faults and reservoirs, and at least 28 producing sands. It was drilled to a very high well density by numerous operators. I did a lot of work there in 1984-1986, and the operator I was working with drilled about 20 frio wells in the field.
  Mobil had the biggest lease in the field and got a grant and started a fireflood. For the non-industry types, thats where an operator pumps air in the reservoir and sets it on fire because heat makes oil thinner and the combustion gases help drive the oil through the reservoir rocks, about 1200 ft. deep and small acreage, less than 500 acres. They got production up to about 2,000 barrels a day by my recollection, and changed the oil from old oil to new oil under the Windfall Profits tax,plus got DOE Grants and Tax Credits.I don't remember what the cost was, but, the lifting costs were not cheap. And it was a couple of hundred wells-they had a large crew working for them-20 or 30 pumpers and technicians. Plus engineers, accountants, investor relations flacks, human resource folks, ect., all of the expensive supernumeraries of a big oil company.
  I bought a ten acre lease next door that had five wells and new tanks, the operators had just walked away and left it when prices fell to $12 a barrel and raised $20K by hook and crook and got the lease up to about 10 bbls a day of production. We operated it for about a year, then sold the wells. My investors all made some money, but I figured out my  net was about $5 per hour and a heck of a lot of gray hair and much experience. And with prices at $60/bbl I wish I had the lease back, the wells will still pump a couple f barrels a day, and have for the last 20 years in the oldest part of a field now over 100 years old.
  So, in conclusion, I just don't see how big companies are going to raise US production by redeveloping old fields. But  I think there is lots of oportunity for small operators here on the Gulf Coast to make a good, honest living pumping the dregs. Bob Shaw is right, conservation makes the best economic sense, but its important to recover what'sleft.
To ease my non- oil technology training/education I have a question(s). The injection of CO2 effectively bubbles up to the top of domed shaped stranded oil area, pushing it lower and into a water/oil mixed zone where it can be pumped?  The problem is that CO2 follows the path of least resistance and not neccessarly into the domed deposits?  Also the speed at which this can be done is somewhat slow relative to current practices because it must be allowed to percolate upward somewhat slowly (no power washing?)
The CO2 provides energy to move the oil through the rocks and in to the well bores, replacing the pressure lost through producing the oil and natural gas. Plus CO2 makes oil less stick so it cuts loose from the rock grains more easily.

Its not a new process, companies have been commercially using it for 30 years or so. CO2 also occurs naturally in some fields. At Spindletop in Jefferson County, Texas the gas in the cap rock contained 25% CO2 naturally and the shallow 1200' wells blew in at an estimated 100,000 bbl/day and flowed for 2 years. This was in 1901 and is considered the start of the Gulf Coast oil business. There is an article in the Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in about 1906 that describes this and is very interesting. I don' think its available online but Rice University in Houston has a copy.

the co2 lightens up the oil (making it less viscous) and increases the pressure in the reservoir ( provides energy to drive the oil to the producing wells) the big problem is the co2, being much less viscous than the oil it is displacing, wants to flow to the producing wells  bypassing the oil instead of displacing it  the same reason  waterflooding is relatively inefficient   and the reason the doe has put such a large number (  90 billion barrels) on "potential" oil reserves from co2 eor  
Thank you both for the insights