ABSTRACT The ongoing decline in conventional oil reserves has made enhanced oil recovery (EOR) approaches critical for sustaining hydrocarbon production and extending reservoir life. Selecting the appropriate EOR method is complex because it depends on reservoir‐specific geological and fluid properties. Existing screening tools, such as EORgui, have provided preliminary assistance but are limited by outdated databases and narrow evaluation criteria. This study introduces the EOR Navigator, a modernized screening and ranking platform that integrates updated criteria from Al‐Adasani and Bai with a global database of more than 650 EOR field projects. The Navigator also includes 16 additional EOR methods across 5 categories (thermal/mechanical, chemical, immiscible gas, miscible gas, and microbial/other). The Navigator employs a multi‐criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework, converting qualitative color‐coded compatibility into normalized numerical scores (0–100) and enabling objective ranking even when reservoir data are incomplete. Validation against seven international field case studies, including Shengli, Daqing, Bradford, North Burbank, Viraj, Suplacu de Barcau, and Wilmington, demonstrated that the Navigator's top‐ranked methods closely matched historically applied EOR techniques, with suitability scores exceeding 80% in most cases. Compared to legacy tools, such as EORgui, the Navigator provided more accurate predictions, broader coverage of EOR methods, and greater robustness to incomplete datasets. The novelty of the EOR Navigator lies in integrating a quantitative MCDA‐based ranking framework into a single platform, updating screening criteria, expanding EOR coverage, and expanding the global database. The Navigator outperforms previous screening tools in accuracy and comprehensiveness, providing petroleum engineers with a reliable, evidence‐based platform to improve decision‐making, and maximize recovery efficiency across diverse reservoir conditions.
Rasul et al. (Sun,) studied this question.