Yet another operator in the Gulf of Mexico is taking steps to boost oil and gas recovery from their existing fields. This month Chevron announced it started water injection operations at two of its producing facilities -- Jack/St. Malo and Tahiti.
Water injection is a method of secondary recovery where the injected water physically sweeps the displaced oil to adjacent production wells, while re-pressurizing the reservoir. Just last month, Shell announced similar water-injection plans for its Vito field that would begin in 2027.
Chevron's efforts will contribute toward growing the company’s net GOM output to 300 Mboe/d by 2026. At the Jack/St. Malo facility, first water injection was achieved at the St. Malo field, and that’s expected to add about 175 MMboe to its gross ultimate recovery. The project was delivered under budget involving the addition of water injection facilities, two new production wells, and two new injection wells. Both the Jack and St. Malo fields began production in 2014, located 280 miles south of New Orleans, Louisiana.
At the Tahiti facility, Chevron started injecting water into its first deepwater producer-to-injector conversion well in the Gulf. The project involved installing a new water injection manifold and 20,000 feet of flexible water injection flowline. The company didn’t detail how much more supply would emerge from this initiative at Tahiti, which is located 190 miles south of New Orleans.
