Waterflood Oil Recovery in Fractured Reservoirs With Directionally Drilled Wells

1984 ◽  
Vol 24 (04) ◽  
pp. 375-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey R. Bacon ◽  
Robert H. Kempthorne

Abstract A technique has been developed to estimate the potential effects of directionally drilled wellbore orientation on pattern waterflood oil recovery in anisotropically fractured reservoirs. The technique attempts to quantify the tradeoff between drilling directional wells either more vertically or better aligned with the major fracture orientation in situations where simple vertical wells are not possible. Among the incentives to deplete some reservoirs with directionally drilled wells are the ability to access reserves located beneath large bodies of water from shore or island structures and the economy of centralized surface facilities. The orientation of these directionally drilled wells in anisotropically fractured oil reservoirs may have a significant impact on recovery efficiency. The described method involves combining the directional permeability characteristics of the reservoir caused by fractures, drilling accuracy, and the proposed wellbore orientation to estimate the volume of reservoir that may be affected by a nonvertical well. The distribution of fractures in the reservoir, average fracture length, and effective vertical permeability are noted as being major factors influencing the effect of directionally drilled wells on oil recovery. When applied to the Norman Wells oil field (N.W. Ter., Canada), it was possible to identify elongated target areas within which any directionally drilled well is expected to have similar oil recovery. Introduction Recent advances in drilling technology have made it possible to drill wellbores deviated from the normal vertical position, up to and including completely horizontal. This type of directional drilling will allow the depletion of oil reservoirs that are located beneath surface obstacles by drilling wells from remote surface locations. Access to many of the world's remaining petroleum reserves, in such offshore areas as the Canadian Beaufort Sea and the east coast, will have to be by drilling from conveniently located island or platform structures. The Norman Wells oil reservoir, of which approximately 60% lies beneath the MacKenzie River, is a current example of how directional drilling will make oil recovery possible. The proposed reservoir depletion program involves drilling wells from centralized surface facilities to program involves drilling wells from centralized surface facilities to implement a pattern waterflood oil-recovery scheme (Fig. 1). The wells will be deviated at as much as 700 to the vertical to reach the target locations from the centralized surface locations (Fig. 2). The reservoir rock is anisotropically fractured, and optimization of the wellbore orientation with respect to the fractures was recognized as an area of study with considerable potential for increasing oil recovery. Initial development planning indicated that wells should be as vertical as possible and aligned with the main fracture trend. This simple guideline resulted in many technically impossible wells and wells with poor anticipated oil recovery. The optimization procedure developed here subsequently was applied in the development planning of the Norman Wells reservoir and is believed to have helped maximize oil recovery while maintaining technically feasible and economically viable well designs. Background geological data and details of the proposed Norman Wells development plan are documented in Refs. 1 and 2. Theory Several analytical methods have been presented for determining the vertical and areal sweep efficiencies of pattern waterflood operations. These methods, or more sophisticated reservoir simulation techniques, may be employed to determine the recoverable reserves associated with the waterflooding of homogeneous reservoirs or reservoirs composed of discrete homogeneous units. The presence of fractures in an oil reservoir adds a new dimension to this problem because the flow characteristics of fractured rock systems are difficult to predict. SPEJ p. 375

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Reham Al-Jabri ◽  
Rouhollah Farajzadeh ◽  
Abdullah Alkindi ◽  
Rifaat Al-Mjeni ◽  
David Rousseau ◽  
...  

Abstract Heavy oil reservoirs remain challenging for surfactant-based EOR. In particular, selecting fine-tuned and cost effective chemical formulations requires extensive laboratory work and a solid methodology. This paper reports a laboratory feasibility study, aiming at designing a surfactant-polymer pilot for a heavy oil field with an oil viscosity of ~500cP in the South of Sultanate of Oman, where polymer flooding has already been successfully trialed. A major driver was to design a simple chemical EOR method, to minimize the risk of operational issues (e.g. scaling) and ensure smooth logistics on the field. To that end, a dedicated alkaline-free and solvent-free surfactant polymer (SP) formulation has been designed, with its sole three components, polymer, surfactant and co-surfactant, being readily available industrial chemicals. This part of the work has been reported in a previous paper. A comprehensive set of oil recovery coreflood tests has then been carried out with two objectives: validate the intrinsic performances of the SP formulation in terms of residual oil mobilization and establish an optimal injection strategy to maximize oil recovery with minimal surfactant dosage. The 10 coreflood tests performed involved: Bentheimer sandstone, for baseline assessments on large plugs with minimized experimental uncertainties; homogeneous artificial sand and clays granular packs built to have representative mineralogical composition, for tuning of the injection parameters; native reservoir rock plugs, unstacked in order to avoid any bias, to validate the injection strategy in fully representative conditions. All surfactant injections were performed after long polymer injections, to mimic the operational conditions in the field. Under injection of "infinite" slugs of the SP formulation, all tests have led to tertiary recoveries of more than 88% of the remaining oil after waterflood with final oil saturations of less than 5%. When short slugs of SP formulation were injected, tertiary recoveries were larger than 70% ROIP with final oil saturations less than 10%. The final optimized test on a reservoir rock plug, which was selected after an extensive review of the petrophysical and mineralogical properties of the available reservoir cores, led to a tertiary recovery of 90% ROIP with a final oil saturation of 2%, after injection of 0.35 PV of SP formulation at 6 g/L total surfactant concentration, with surfactant losses of 0.14 mg-surfactant/g(rock). Further optimization will allow accelerating oil bank arrival and reducing the large PV of chase polymer needed to mobilize the liberated oil. An additional part of the work consisted in generating the parameters needed for reservoir scale simulation. This required dedicated laboratory assays and history matching simulations of which the results are presented and discussed. These outcomes validate, at lab scale, the feasibility of a surfactant polymer process for the heavy oil field investigated. As there has been no published field test of SP injection in heavy oil, this work may also open the way to a new range of field applications.


Energies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 2667 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenxiang Chen ◽  
Zubo Zhang ◽  
Qingjie Liu ◽  
Xu Chen ◽  
Prince Opoku Appau ◽  
...  

Oil production by natural energy of the reservoir is usually the first choice for oil reservoir development. Conversely, to effectively develop tight oil reservoir is challenging due to its ultra-low formation permeability. A novel platform for experimental investigation of oil recovery from tight sandstone oil reservoirs by pressure depletion has been proposed in this paper. A series of experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of pressure depletion degree, pressure depletion rate, reservoir temperature, overburden pressure, formation pressure coefficient and crude oil properties on oil recovery by reservoir pressure depletion. In addition, the characteristics of pressure propagation during the reservoir depletion process were monitored and studied. The experimental results showed that oil recovery factor positively correlated with pressure depletion degree when reservoir pressure was above the bubble point pressure. Moreover, equal pressure depletion degree led to the same oil recovery factor regardless of different pressure depletion rate. However, it was noticed that faster pressure drop resulted in a higher oil recovery rate. For oil reservoir without dissolved gas (dead oil), oil recovery was 2–3% due to the limited reservoir natural energy. In contrast, depletion from live oil reservoir resulted in an increased recovery rate ranging from 11% to 18% due to the presence of dissolved gas. This is attributed to the fact that when reservoir pressure drops below the bubble point pressure, the dissolved gas expands and pushes the oil out of the rock pore spaces which significantly improves the oil recovery. From the pressure propagation curve, the reason for improved oil recovery is that when the reservoir pressure is lower than the bubble point pressure, the dissolved gas constantly separates and provides additional pressure gradient to displace oil. The present study will help engineers to have a better understanding of the drive mechanisms and influencing factors that affect development of tight oil reservoirs, especially for predicting oil recovery by reservoir pressure depletion.


1994 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
G. B. Salter ◽  
W. P. Kerckhoff

Development of the Cossack and Wanaea oil fields is in progress with first oil scheduled for late 1995. Wanaea oil reserves are estimated in the order of 32 x 106m3 (200 MMstb) making this the largest oil field development currently underway in Australia.Development planning for these fields posed a unique set of challenges.Key subsurface uncertainties are the requirement for water injection (Wanaea only) and well numbers. Strategies for managing these uncertainties were studied and appropriate flexibility built-in to planned facilities.Alternative facility concepts including steel/concrete platforms and floating options were studied-the concept selected comprises subsea wells tied-back to production/storage/export facilities on an FPSO located over Wanaea.In view of the high proportion of costs associated with the subsea components, significant effort was focussed on flowline optimisation, simplification and cost reduction. These actions have led to potential major economic benefits.Gas utilisation options included reinjection into the oil reservoirs, export for re-injection into North Rankin or export to shore. The latter requires the installation of an LPG plant onshore and was selected as the simplest, safest and the most economically attractive method.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 3925-3935
Author(s):  
Samin Raziperchikolaee ◽  
Srikanta Mishra

Abstract Evaluating reservoir performance could be challenging, especially when available data are only limited to pressures and rates from oil field production and/or injection wells. Numerical simulation is a typical approach to estimate reservoir properties using the history match process by reconciling field observations and model predictions. Performing numerical simulations can be computationally expensive by considering a large number of grids required to capture the spatial variation in geological properties, detailed structural complexity of the reservoir, and numerical time steps to cover different periods of oil recovery. In this work, a simplified physics-based model is used to estimate specific reservoir parameters during CO2 storage into a depleted oil reservoir. The governing equation is based on the integrated capacitance resistance model algorithm. A multivariate linear regression method is used for estimating reservoir parameters (injectivity index and compressibility). Synthetic scenarios were generated using a multiphase flow numerical simulator. Then, the results of the simplified physics-based model in terms of the estimated fluid compressibility were compared against the simulation results. CO2 injection data including bottom hole pressure and injection rate were also gathered from a depleted oil reef in Michigan Basin. A field application of the simplified physics-based model was presented to estimate above-mentioned parameters for the case of CO2 storage in a depleted oil reservoir in Michigan Basin. The results of this work show that this simple lumped parameter model can be used for a quick estimation of the specific reservoir parameters and its changes over the CO2 injection period.


1972 ◽  
Vol 12 (02) ◽  
pp. 143-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.L. Claridge

Abstract A new correlation bas been developed for estimating oil recovery in unstable miscible five-spot pattern floods. It combines existing methods of predicting areal coverage and linear displacement efficiency and was used to calculate oil recovery for a series of assumed slug sizes in a live-spot CO2 slug-waterflood pilot test. The economic optimum slug size varies with CO2 cost; at anticipated CO2 costs the pilot would generate an attractive profit if performance is as predicted Introduction Selection of good field prospects for application of oil recovery processes other than waterflooding is often difficult. The principal reason is that other proposed displacing agents are far more costly proposed displacing agents are far more costly than water and usually sweep a lesser fraction of the volume of an oil reservoir (while displacing oil more efficiently from this fraction). Such agents must be used in limited amounts as compared with water; and this amount must achieve an appreciable additional oil recovery above waterflooding recovery. For these reasons, there is in general much less economic margin for engineering error in processes other than waterflooding. The general characteristics of the various types of supplemental recovery processes are well known, and adequate choices can be made of processes to be considered in more detail with respect to a given field. Comparative estimates must then be made of process performance and costs in order to narrow the choice. A much more detailed, definitive process-and-economic evaluation is eventually process-and-economic evaluation is eventually required of the chosen process before an executive decision can be made to commit large amounts of money to such projects. It is in the area between first choice and final engineering evaluation that this work applies. A areal cusping and vertical coning into producing wells. These effects can be seated by existing "desk-drawer" correlation which can confirm or deny the engineer's surmise that he has an appropriate match of recovery process and oil reservoir characteristics is of considerable value in determining when to undertake the costly and often manpower-consuming task of a definitive process-and-economic evaluation. process-and-economic evaluation. An examination of the nature of the developed crude oil resources in the U.S. indicates that the majority of the crude oil being produced is above 35 degrees API gravity and exists in reservoirs deeper than 4,000 ft. The combination of hydrostatic pressure on these oil reservoirs, the natural gas usually present in the crude oil in proportion to this pressure, the reservoir temperatures typically found, and the distribution of molecular sizes and types in the crude oil corresponding to the API gravity results in the fact that, in the majority of cases, the in-place crude oil viscosity was originally no more than twice that of water. A large proportion of these oil reservoirs have undergone pressure decline, gas evolution and consequent increase in crude oil viscosity. However, an appreciable proportion are still at such a pressure and proportion are still at such a pressure and temperature that miscibility can be readily attained with miscible drive agents such as propane or carbon dioxide, and the viscosity of the crude oil is such that the mobility of these miscible drive agents is no more than 50 time s that of the crude oil. Under these circumstances, a possible candidate situation for the miscible-drive type of process may exist. process may exist. Supposing that such a situation is under consideration, the next question is: what specific miscible drive process, and how should it be designed to operate? In some cases, the answer is clear: when the reservoir has a high degree of vertical communication (high permeability and continuity of the permeable, oil-bearing pore space in the vertical direction), then a gravity-stabilized miscible flood is the preferred mode of operation; and the particular drive agent or agents can be chosen on the basis of miscibility requirements, availability and cost. SPEJ P. 143


1967 ◽  
Vol 7 (01) ◽  
pp. 61-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. McFarlane ◽  
T.D. Mueller ◽  
F.G. Miller

Abstract During the process of gas storage in pressure-depleted oil reservoirs, it has been observed that in some instances additional liquid oil is recovered and that the composition of the storage gas is materially altered. A mathematical study was made of the dynamic behavior of such a depleted oil reservoir undergoing gas injection. The important variable considered in this study, not included in previously published work, was that of compositional effects on the phase behavior of two-phase flow. Pressure, saturation and component composition profiles were developed for a linear, horizontal and homogeneous porous medium containing oil and gas but undergoing dry gas injection. Special new techniques were developed to overcome the problems of numerical smoothing which arise in the solution of the equations representing such systems. The method of solution includes the development of partial differential equations describing the behavior of the system, representing these equations by finite difference approximations, making certain simplifying assumptions and, finally, applying methods of numerical analysis with the aid of a high-speed digital computer. In an example calculation, results using the mathematical model are compared with field observations made on a gas storage project in Clay County, Tex. This field project involved a depleted oil reservoir used' for gas storage and gas cycling purposes. As a result of these processes, the reservoir yielded substantial amounts of secondary oil, both in the form of stock tank oil and as vaporized products in the produced gas. The methods derived in this study may be applied to a variety of oil reservoir problems which are dependent on compositional effects. INTRODUCTION In recent years the number of oil reservoirs being used for gas storage purposes has increased greatly, and there has been at least one published account of additional oil recovery resulting from gas cycling a depleted oil reservoir after repressuring with dry gas for storage purposes. Additional oil recovery from oil reservoirs resulting from gas storage operations could become an important secondary recovery process. This is especially true since the use of natural gas in large metropolitan areas continues to increase and more gas storage volume near these areas is needed. These facts provided the motivation for the work reported here. This paper reports on a study of the inter-relations of composition, saturation and pressure changes which occur when hydrocarbon gas is injected into an oil reservoir system. From an understanding of the process, prediction methods may be developed for use in forecasting the secondary recovery products from gas storage operations in oil reservoirs and, consequently, .the economics of such projects can be developed.


2013 ◽  
Vol 734-737 ◽  
pp. 1434-1439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gang Wu ◽  
Fu Ping Ren ◽  
Jing You ◽  
Ji Liang Yu ◽  
Ya Tuo Pei ◽  
...  

Based on the low-temperature and heavy oil reservoir of conventional injection well pattern separated two strains of oil degradation bacteria LC and JH which had satisfactory compatibleness with BaoLige oill field. In order to study the feasibility of enhancing oil recovery rate of the two strains, the experiment of huff and puff with 15 wells were carried out. The average concentration of bacteria increase from 4.7×102cells/ml to 8.1×106cells/ml. The average reduction of surface tension and viscosity is 33.1% and 31.9%. The accumulative total was 1163.2t. The ratio of input to output was 1:2.12. Microbial enhanced oil recovery can improve the low-temperature and heavy oil production status, which provide a effective method for the similar oil field.


2020 ◽  
Vol 177 (6) ◽  
pp. 1315-1328
Author(s):  
Callum J. D. Gilchrist ◽  
John W. Cosgrove ◽  
Kevin J. Parmassar

The Shaikan Field is a large producing oil field in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. It consists of multiple fractured reservoirs consisting of limestones, calcareous sandstones and mudstones. The surrounding tectonic terrane is situated in the seismically active Zagros–Taurus orogenic zone, where present-day stresses are high. The regional stresses are found to impose conditions that satisfy failure along reservoir-bound fractures, suggesting that a significant proportion of fractures are likely to be critically stressed. The in situ maximum principal stress magnitudes are estimated using three methods, namely, the tensile and compressive strengths of reservoir rock, and leak-off test (LOT) data. Stress-field orientations are determined from wellbore image log data, which are used to interpret wellbore breakouts and the associated induced tensile fractures. Reservoir pressure has declined since production started and poroelastic responses have been assessed and used to estimate the present-day stress-state and the criticality of those fractures that are most likely to fail or slip. Although a conventional approach has been used the present authors argue that a new approach to stress response with changing pore pressure should be taken. Unlike the previous theory of criticality in which a reduction in pore pressure is considered to lead to a stabilization of the fracture network, the present study suggests that a system may remain critically stressed regardless of pressure decline.Thematic collection: This article is part of the The Geology of Fractured Reservoirs collection available at: https://www.lyellcollection.org/cc/the-geology-of-fractured-reservoirs


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 6215
Author(s):  
Manoj Kumar Valluri ◽  
Jimin Zhou ◽  
Srikanta Mishra ◽  
Kishore Mohanty

Process understanding of CO2 injection into a reservoir is a crucial step for planning a CO2 injection operation. CO2 injection was investigated for Ohio oil reservoirs which have access to abundant CO2 from local coal-fired power plants and industrial facilities. In a first of its kind study in Ohio, lab-scale core characterization and flooding experiments were conducted on two of Ohio’s most prolific oil and gas reservoirs—the Copper Ridge dolomite and Clinton sandstone. Reservoir properties such as porosity, permeability, capillary pressure, and oil–water relative permeability were measured prior to injecting CO2 under and above the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) of the reservoir. These evaluations generated reservoir rock-fluid data that are essential for building reservoir models in addition to providing insights on injection below and above the MMP. Results suggested that the two Ohio reservoirs responded positively to CO2 injection and recovered additional oil. Copper Ridge reservoir’s incremental recovery ranged between 20% and 50% oil originally in place while that of Clinton sandstone ranged between 33% and 36% oil originally in place. It was also deduced that water-alternating-gas injection schemes can be detrimental to production from tight reservoirs such as the Clinton sandstone.


2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (01) ◽  
pp. 86-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.. Garmeh ◽  
M.. Izadi ◽  
M.. Salehi ◽  
J.L.. L. Romero ◽  
C.P.. P. Thomas ◽  
...  

Summary A common problem in many waterflooded oil reservoirs is early water breakthrough with high water cut through highly conductive thief zones. Thermally active polymer (TAP), which is an expandable submicron particulate of low viscosity, has been successfully used as an in-depth conformance to improve sweep efficiency of waterfloods. This paper describes the workflow to evaluate technical feasibility of this conformance technology for proper pilot-project designs supported with detailed simulation studies. Two simulation approaches have been developed to model properties of this polymer and its interaction with reservoir rock. Both methods include temperature-triggered viscosification and adsorption/retention effects. Temperature profile in the reservoir is modeled by energy balance to accurately place this polymer at the optimum location in the thief zone. The first method considers a single chemical component in the water phase. The second method is based on chemical reactions of multiple chemical components. Both simulation approaches are compared and discussed. Results show that temperature-triggered polymers can increase oil recovery by viscosification and chemical adsorption/retention, which reduces thief-zone permeability and diverts flow into unswept zones. Sensitivity analyses suggest that ultimate oil recovery and conformance control depend on the thief-zone temperature, vertical-to the horizontal-permeability ratio (Kv/Kh), thief-zone vertical location, injection concentration and slug size, oil viscosity, and chemical adsorption and its reversibility, among other factors. For high-flow-capacity thief zones and mobility ratios higher than 10, oil recoveries can be improved by increasing chemical concentration or slug size of treatments, or both. Reservoirs with low Kv/Kh (< 0.1) and high permeability contrast generally shows faster incremental recoveries than reservoirs with high Kv/Kh and strong water segregation. The presented workflow is currently used to perform in-depth conformance treatment designs in onshore and offshore fields and can be used as a reference tool to evaluate benefits of the TAP in waterflooded oil reservoirs.


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