The role of laboratory tests in enhanced recovery of conventional and non-conventional hydrocarbon resources

During both the increase of the recovery factor of known oil fields and the development of producing technologies of the so-called non-conventional oil fields, several laboratory tests were performed in the past years in the Research Institute of Applied Earth Sciences of the University of Miskolc. These studies pointed out that special petrophysical laboratory measurements (pore size distribution, capillary pressure, relative permeability) and the laboratory displacement test modelling of enhanced oil recovery technologies are essential to understand the processes in the underground porous / permeable structure. In this paper based on the laboratory tests of the past years, methods and technologies are introduced by showing measurement results as examples of special laboratory measurements (pore size distribution, displacement tests, wettability properties). Using these methods can contribute considerably to the evaluation of non-conventional hydrocarbon resources, and also to increase the recovery factor of the known hydrocarbon resources.