RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:$83 oil back in the 80's, EOR was a new frontier and mostly a hopium sold to management for promotion, and sold to gov't for grant money. You already pointed out that N2 flood got sanctioned because an insider benefited from selling N2, and grant money because new hopium project always get grant money if sold correctly. Been there, done that. I don't know of any commercial N2 injection for oil recovery currently. Surely they had it perfected by now if it's viable.
If companies and opec ain't jumping tino drilling new wells (much more economic than EOR) now, i doubt EOR has a future for ghawar, unless it is for ESG reason like CCS and having ghawar store the CO2. However, CO2 in presence oxgenated salty sea water = carbonic acid and corrosive environment and ghawar is a carbonate reservoir.
Carbonate reservoir. A significant proportion of the world's oil reserves are found in carbonate reservoirs. Many of these are located in the Middle East, Libya, Russia, Kazakhstan, and North America. Some very large oil fields have carbonate reservoirs, including the largest conventional oil field in the world, the Ghawar field of Saudi Arabia.
JohnSP wrote: I worked on Ehane followed by Nitrogen flood of Cardium oil field in Alberta north of Rockly Mountain House in 1980's. Was justified in age of very high prices and I think lots of govt funding. IIRC Dome CEO Jack Gallagher owned the N2 Plant :).
Anyway huge economies of scale for EOR of Ghawar, could use CO2 byproduct from nearby Qatar's LNG Plants at Ras Laffan Industrial City. That said we are years away from amything like that, if ever as you say.