Potential for Harnessing the Heat from a Mature High-Pressure-High-Temperature Oil Field in Italy

Significant volumes of water are co-produced with oil and gas in mature hydrocarbon developments. Often, the produced fluids are at high temperatures, and cooling is therefore required. However, because of the large volumes involved, one might consider exploiting the co-produced water’s geothermal potential in order to reduce both the field’s OPEX and the fossil energy needed to continue extracting the hydrocarbons, and so extend the life of the field by delaying its economic cut-off point. Also, there is scope for eliminating the field abandonment costs for the oil and gas operator, who could hand over the field to a geothermal operator when hydrocarbon production became uneconomic; the geothermal operator would in turn save the initial cost of having to drill and complete wells and install surface facilities. This paper consists of a preliminary assessment of the potential for geothermal exploitation of the co-produced water from wells in the Villafortuna–Trecate oil field in Italy,