Recovery optimization
Enhancing reservoir performance and rejuvenating mature fields
Overcome the challenges of mature fields
The recovery optimization solution enhances reservoir performance and rejuvenates mature fields through an integrated approach built on three pillars:
- Tailored injection and flood management.
- Proactive production operations.
- Strategic facilities optimization.
Designed to overcome the challenges of declining oil rates, rising water cut, and operational inefficiencies, it improves sweep efficiency, reduces water production, and increases ultimate recovery—lowering both opex and capex.
By combining advanced reservoir characterization, digital monitoring, and data-driven decision making, we enable smarter flood control and optimized production.
The solution also includes water, polymer, and CO₂ recycling capabilities to reduce costs and environmental impact. Through coordinated integration of the subsurface, wells, and facilities disciplines, SLB delivers sustainable recovery improvements, minimizes downtime, and enhances project economics.
The result? A smarter, more efficient, and more sustainable pathway to unlocking your reservoir’s full potential—advancing performance and value for a balanced energy future.
Challenges we help you solve
Mature waterflooding and EOR projects face growing complexity as fields age, injection continues, and proactive field management is not always applied.
These challenges span reservoir performance, surface operations, and overall project economics—impacting recovery efficiency and long-term value. The SLB recovery optimization solution helps overcome these barriers with integrated subsurface insights, digital intelligence, and proven operational execution to restore performance and extend field life.
Reservoir challenges
Aging reservoirs often exhibit bypassed oil, declining oil rates, and early water breakthrough. Formation damage—from scaling, fines migration, or bacterial growth—reduces injectivity and sweep efficiency, while poor pressure maintenance and suboptimal well placement limit recovery. SLB combines advanced reservoir characterization, flood-pattern optimization, and selective injection and conformance technologies to improve areal and vertical sweep and maximize recovery.
Production operations challenges
As water handling increases, so do lifting, treating, and disposal costs. Well integrity issues, surface bottlenecks, and power limitations contribute to downtime, production losses, and rising opex.
With digital surveillance, proactive maintenance, and modular facility upgrades, SLB enhances uptime, streamlines water management, and reduces operating costs.
Economic and performance challenges
Inefficient operations, limited monitoring, and high uncertainty in reservoir response affect project economics and decision confidence. Our data-driven workflows, real-time analytics, and integrated execution reduce uncertainty, improve predictability, and sustain economic viability across the recovery lifecycle.
The value we create
The recovery optimization solution delivers measurable performance improvements by identifying bypassed oil, preferential flow paths, injectivity profiles, and reservoir heterogeneity to refine flood strategy and optimize production operations. Through integrated subsurface analysis and targeted facility upgrades, we rationalize investments, enhance sweep efficiency, and maximize recovery—driving tangible economic impact across the recovery lifecycle.
- Increase oil production and reserves
Unlock additional barrels and improve recovery factor through optimized flood design, enhanced injectivity, and targeted conformance control. - Reduce opex per barrel
Streamline production operations, improve energy efficiency, and reduce water handling and chemical usage to lower operating costs. - Rationalize capex requirements
Prioritize investments through data-driven decision making and fit-for-purpose debottlenecking to maximize capital efficiency. - Improve field economics
Strengthen project profitability with optimized production, reduced losses, and accelerated returns from existing assets. - Extend field life and delay abandonment
Sustain production and asset value through improved recovery and proactive facilities optimization, deferring decommissioning costs.
Why choose SLB
As a global technology leader, SLB brings together the industry’s most comprehensive recovery portfolio—spanning subsurface characterization, digital enablement, and full-field EOR deployment. Our recovery optimization solution unites multidisciplinary expertise, advanced digital workflows, and field-proven technologies, to deliver measurable results with speed, precision, and reliability.
- Integrated expertise
Multidisciplinary teams combining reservoir, production, and facilities specialists to deliver fully coordinated, end-to-end optimization. - Digital tools and intelligent workflows
Advanced modeling, monitoring, and analytics platforms enable real-time decision making and continuous performance improvement. - Extensive field service portfolio
Access the industry’s broadest range of subsurface and surface technologies to support every phase—from diagnostics to execution. - Global reach, local delivery
With operations in more than 100 countries, we bring the right expertise and resources to every project—wherever your assets are located. - Proven project execution
Decades of experience managing complex, multi-disciplinary projects, with flexible partnership and commercial models that ensure safe, efficient, and predictable outcomes.
