Chapter 9 – Closing Remarks

Publisher Summary This chapter presents a comprehensive picture of how business decisions lead to investments based on decision-making workflows. The field cases described demonstrate that decisions can and have been made using screening strategies without the need for more advanced techniques and time-consuming studies. This is not to say that advanced and more complex methods are unnecessary but that simpler engineering approaches often may be the right solution to decision making for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects before embarking on more costly and time-consuming exercises. Proper engineering judgment and physically sound analysis are key steps in this type of evaluation. Decision analysis can be enhanced by an open mind that accounts for most of the available possibilities. This can be greatly helped by a large knowledge base, which can be recorded in part through a well-organized database. Decision making can be phased according to time and/or data constraints with least possible detrimental consequences.