Pilot Project Evaluating WAG Efficiency for Carbonate Reservoir in Eastern Siberia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Zharko ◽  
Dmitriy Burdakov

Abstract The paper presents the results of a pilot project implementing WAG injection at the oilfield with carbonate reservoir, characterized by low efficiency of traditional waterflooding. The objective of the pilot project was to evaluate the efficiency of this enhanced oil recovery method for conditions of the specific oil field. For the initial introduction of WAG, an area of the reservoir with minimal potential risks has been identified. During the test injections of water and gas, production parameters were monitored, including the oil production rates of the reacting wells and the water and gas injection rates of injection wells, the change in the density and composition of the produced fluids. With first positive results, the pilot area of the reservoir was expanded. In accordance with the responses of the producing wells to the injection of displacing agents, the injection rates were adjusted, and the production intensified, with the aim of maximizing the effect of WAG. The results obtained in practice were reproduced in the simulation model sector in order to obtain a project curve characterizing an increase in oil recovery due to water-alternating gas injection. Practical results obtained during pilot testing of the technology show that the injection of gas and water alternately can reduce the water cut of the reacting wells and increase overall oil production, providing more efficient displacement compared to traditional waterflooding. The use of WAG after the waterflooding provides an increase in oil recovery and a decrease in residual oil saturation. The water cut of the produced liquid decreased from 98% to 80%, an increase in oil production rate of 100 tons/day was obtained. The increase in the oil recovery factor is estimated at approximately 7.5% at gas injection of 1.5 hydrocarbon pore volumes. Based on the received results, the displacement characteristic was constructed. Methods for monitoring the effectiveness of WAG have been determined, and studies are planned to be carried out when designing a full-scale WAG project at the field. This project is the first pilot project in Russia implementing WAG injection in a field with a carbonate reservoir. During the pilot project, the technical feasibility of implementing this EOR method was confirmed, as well as its efficiency in terms of increasing the oil recovery factor for the conditions of the carbonate reservoir of Eastern Siberia, characterized by high water cut and low values of oil displacement coefficients during waterflooding.

Author(s):  
Sudad H AL-Obaidi ◽  
Miel Hofmann ◽  
Falah H. Khalaf ◽  
Hiba H. Alwan

The efficiency of gas injection for developing terrigenous deposits within a multilayer producing object is investigated in this article. According to the results of measurements of the 3D hydrodynamic compositional model, an assessment of the oil recovery factor was made. In the studied conditions, re-injection of the associated gas was found to be the most technologically efficient working agent. The factors contributing to the inefficacy of traditional methods of stimulating oil production such as multistage hydraulic fracturing when used to develop low-permeability reservoirs have been analyzed. The factors contributing to the inefficiency of traditional oil-production stimulation methods, such as multistage hydraulic fracturing, have been analysed when they are applied to low-permeability reservoirs. The use of a gas of various compositions is found to be more effective as a working agent for reservoirs with permeability less than 0.005 µm2. Ultimately, the selection of an agent for injection into the reservoir should be driven by the criteria that allow assessing the applicability of the method under specific geological and physical conditions. In multilayer production objects, gas injection efficiency is influenced by a number of factors, in addition to displacement, including the ratio of gas volumes, the degree to which pressure is maintained in each reservoir, as well as how the well is operated. With the increase in production rate from 60 to 90 m3 / day during the re-injection of produced hydrocarbon gas, this study found that the oil recovery factor increased from 0.190 to 0.229. The further increase in flow rate to 150 m3 / day, however, led to a faster gas breakthrough, a decrease in the amount of oil produced, and a decrease in the oil recovery factor to 0.19 Based on the results of the research, methods for stimulating the formation of low-permeability reservoirs were ranked based on their efficacy.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 2346
Author(s):  
Mirosław Wojnicki ◽  
Jan Lubaś ◽  
Marcin Warnecki ◽  
Jerzy Kuśnierczyk ◽  
Sławomir Szuflita

Crucial oil reservoirs are located in naturally fractured carbonate formations and are currently reaching a mature phase of production. Hence, a cost-effective enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method is needed to achieve a satisfactory recovery factor. The paper focuses on an experimental investigation of the efficiency of water alternating sour and high-nitrogen (~85% N2) natural gas injection (WAG) in mixed-wetted carbonates that are crucial reservoir rocks for Polish oil fields. The foam-assisted water alternating gas method (FAWAG) was also tested. Both were compared with continuous water injection (CWI) and continuous gas injection (CGI). A series of coreflooding experiments were conducted within reservoir conditions (T = 126 ℃, P = 270 bar) on composite cores, and each consisted of four reservoir dolomite core plugs and was saturated with the original reservoir fluids. In turn, some of the experiments were conducted on artificially fractured cores to evaluate the impact of fractures on recovery efficiency. The performance evaluation of the tested methods was carried out by comparing oil recoveries from non-fractured composite cores, as well as fractured. In the case of non-fractured cores, the WAG injection outperformed continuous gas injection (CGI) and continuous water injection (CWI). As expected, the presence of fractures significantly reduced performance of WAG, CGI and CWI injection modes. In contrast, with regard to FAWAG, deployment of foam flow in the presence of fractures remarkably enhanced oil recovery, which confirms the possibility of using the FAWAG method in situations of premature gas breakthrough. The positive results encourage us to continue the research of the potential uses of this high-nitrogen natural gas in EOR, especially in the view of the utilization of gas reservoirs with advantageous location, high reserves and reservoir energy.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sudad H Al-Obaidi ◽  
Hofmann M ◽  
Khalaf FH ◽  
Hiba H Alwan

The efficiency of gas injection for developing terrigenous deposits within a multilayer producing object is investigated in this article. According to the results of measurements of the 3D hydrodynamic compositional model, an assessment of the oil recovery factor was made. In the studied conditions, re-injection of the associated gas was found to be the most technologically efficient working agent. The factors contributing to the inefficacy of traditional methods of stimulating oil production such as multistage hydraulic fracturing when used to develop low-permeability reservoirs have been analysed. The factors contributing to the inefficiency of traditional oil-production stimulation methods, such as multistage hydraulic fracturing, have been analysed when they are applied to low-permeability reservoirs. The use of a gas of various compositions is found to be more effective as a working agent for reservoirs with permeability less than 0.005 μm2. Ultimately, the selection of an agent for injection into the reservoir should be driven by the criteria that allow assessing the applicability of the method under specific geological and physical conditions. In multilayer production objects, gas injection efficiency is influenced by a number of factors, in addition to displacement, including the ratio of gas volumes, the degree to which pressure is maintained in each reservoir, as well as how the well is operated. With the increase in production rate from 60 to 90 m3 / day during the re-injection of produced hydrocarbon gas, this study found that the oil recovery factor increased from 0.190 to 0.229. The further increase in flow rate to 150 m3 / day, however, led to a faster gas breakthrough, a decrease in the amount of oil produced, and a decrease in the oil recovery factor to 0.19. Based on the results of the research, methods for stimulating the formation of low-permeability reservoirs were ranked based on their efficacy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (11(80)) ◽  
pp. 17-20
Author(s):  
G. Doskaziyeva ◽  
D. Zholdaskaliyev

The article describes gas re-injection as an effective method of stimulating the formation, which will provide high rates of oil production and increase the oil recovery factor.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thaer I. Ismail ◽  
Emad W. Al-Shalabi ◽  
Mahmoud Bedewi ◽  
Waleed AlAmeri

Abstract Gas injection is one of the most commonly used enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods. However, there are multiple problems associated with gas injection including gravity override, viscous fingering, and channeling. These problems are due to an adverse mobility ratio and cause early breakthrough of the gas resulting, in poor recovery efficiency. A Water Alternating Gas (WAG) injection process is recommended to resolve these problems through better mobility control of gas, leading to better project economics. However, poor WAG design and lack of understanding of the different factors that control its performance might result in unfavorable oil recovery. Therefore, this study provides more insight into improving WAG oil recovery by optimizing different surface and subsurface WAG parameters using a coupled surface and subsurface simulator. Moreover, the work investigates the effects of hysteresis on WAG performance. This case study investigates a field named Volve, which is a decommissioned sandstone field in the North Sea. Experimental design of factors influencing WAG performance on this base case was studied. Sensitivity analysis was performed on different surface and subsurface WAG parameters including WAG ratio, time to start WAG, total gas slug size, cycle slug size, and tubing diameter. A full two-level factorial design was used for the sensitivity study. The significant parameters of interest were further optimized numerically to maximize oil recovery. The results showed that the total slug size is the most important parameter, followed by time to start WAG, and then cycle slug size. WAG ratio appeared in some of the interaction terms while tubing diameter effect was found to be negligible. The study also showed that phase hysteresis has little to no effect on oil recovery. Based on the optimization, it is recommended to perform waterflooding followed by tertiary WAG injection for maximizing oil recovery from the Volve field. Furthermore, miscible WAG injection resulted in an incremental oil recovery between 5 to 11% OOIP compared to conventional waterflooding. WAG optimization is case-dependent and hence, the findings of this study hold only for the studied case, but the workflow should be applicable to any reservoir. Unlike most previous work, this study investigates WAG optimization considering both surface and subsurface parameters using a coupled model.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Effiong Essien ◽  
Uchenna Onyejiaka ◽  
Stanley Onwukwe ◽  
Nnaemeka Uwaezuoke

Abstract Poor formation permeability and near well bore damage may limit water injectivity into the reservoir in a water injection project. This paper seeks to evaluate the effect of radial drilling technique on water injectivity and oil recovery in water flooding operation. Radial drilling technology utilizes hydraulic energy to create lateral perpendicular small holes through the casing into the reservoir. The holes may extend to 100 m (330 ft) into the reservoir to access fresh formations beyond the near wellbore, and damage zone. A black oil simulator (Eclipse 100) was used to modeling a lateral radial drill from the borehole into the reservoir, and that of a conventional perforation of the wellbore respectively. A simulation study was carried out using various presumed radial drill configurations in determining injectivity index, displacement efficiencies, recovery factor and water cut of the process. The determined results were further compared with that of the conventional perforation process case respectively. The results show a significant improvement in water injectivity in radial drill case with the increasing length and number of radials as compared to the conventional wellbore perforation case. The determined Recovery factor shows a progressive increase with increase in the numbers of radials drilled, irrespective of the radial length. However, it was observed that, the more the number and length of the radials drilled in to the reservoir, the higher the water cut from producer wells. Radial Drilling Technology, therefore, has a promising potential to improving water injectivity into the reservoir and thereby optimizing oil recovery in a water flooding operation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lijuan Huang ◽  
Zongfa Li ◽  
Shaoran Ren ◽  
Yanming Liu

Abstract The technology of air injection has been widely used in the second and tertiary recovery in oilfields. However, due to the injected air and natural gas will explode, the safety of the gas injection technology has attracted much attention. Gravity assisted oxygen-reduced air flooding is a new method that eliminates explosion risks and improves oil recovery in large-dip oil reservoirs or thick oil layers. The explosion limit data of different components of natural gas under high pressure were obtained through explosion experiments, which verified the suppression effect of oxygen-reduced air on explosions. The influence of natural gas composition and concentration on explosion limits was also investigated. In addition, a rotatable displacement device was used to study the feasibility of gravity assisted oxygen-reduced air injection for improving the heavy oil reservoirs recovery. Under pressure and temperature conditions of 20MPa and 371K, the sand-filled gravity flooding experiments with different dip angles were carried out using oxygen-reduced air with an oxygen content of 8%. The results show that with the increase of the reservoir dip, the pore volume of the injected fluid at the gas channeling point, the efficient development time of gas injection, and the final displacement efficiency of gas injection development all increase through gravity stabilization caused by gravity differentiation. In the presence of a dip angle, the cumulative oil production before the gas breakthrough point exceeded 80% of the oil production during the entire production process, indicating that gravity assisted oxygen-reduced air flooding is an effective and safe improving oil recovery method. Finally, the explosion risk of each link of the air injection process is analyzed, and the high-risk area and the low-risk area are determined.


Polymers ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Zhang ◽  
Nasir Khan ◽  
Chunsheng Pu

Due to the strong heterogeneity between the fracture and the matrix in fractured oil reservoirs, injected water is mainly moved forward along the fracture, which results in poor water flooding. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the water cut and increase oil production by using the conformance control technology. So far, gel particles and partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM)/Cr3+ gel are the most common applications due to their better suitability and low price. However, either of the two alone can only reduce the conductivity of the fracture to a certain extent, which leads to a poor effect. Therefore, to efficiently plug the fracture to enhance oil recovery, a combination of gel particles and the HPAM/Cr3+ system is used by laboratory tests according to their respective advantages. The first step is that the gel particles can compactly and uniformly cover the entire fracture and then the fracture channel is transformed into the gel particles media. This process can enhance the oil recovery to 18.5%. The second step is that a suitable HPAM/Cr3+ system based on the permeability of the gel particles media is injected in the fractured core. Thus, the fracture can be completely plugged and the oil in the matrix of the fractured core can be displaced by water flooding. This process can enhance oil recovery to 10.5%. During the whole process, the oil recovery is increased to 29% by this method. The results show that this principle can provide a new method for the sustainable and efficient development of fractured oil reservoirs.


Author(s):  
Gabriel A. Alarcón ◽  
Carlos F. Torres-Monzón ◽  
Nellyana Gonzalo ◽  
Luis E. Gómez

Abstract Continuous flow gas lift is one of the most common artificial lift method in the oil industry and is widely used in the world. A continuous volume of gas is injected at high pressure into the bottom of the tubing, to gasify the oil column and thus facilitate the extraction. If there is no restriction in the amount of injection gas available, sufficient gas can be injected into each oil well to reach maximum production. However, the injection gas available is generally insufficient. An inefficient gas allocation in a field with limited gas supply also reduces the revenues, since excessive gas injection is expensive due to the high gas prices and compressing costs. Therefore, it is necessary to assign the injection gas into each well in optimal form to obtain the field maximum oil production rate. The gas allocation optimization can be considered as a maximization of a nonlinear function, which models the total oil production rate for a group of wells. The variables or unknowns for this function are the gas injection rates for each well, which are subject to physical restrictions. In this work a MATLAB™ nonlinear optimization technique with constraints was implemented to find the optimal gas injection rates. A new mathematical fit to the “Gas-Lift Performance Curve” is presented and the numeric results of the optimization are given and compared with results of other methods published in the specialized literature. The optimization technique proved fast convergence and broad application.


Author(s):  
Erhui Luo ◽  
Zifei Fan ◽  
Yongle Hu ◽  
Lun Zhao ◽  
Jianjun Wang

Produced gas containing the acid gas reinjection is one of the effective enhanced oil recovery methods, not only saving costs of disposing acid gases and zero discharge of greenhouse gases but also supporting reservoir pressure. The subsurface fluid from the Carboniferous carbonate reservoir in the southern margin of the Pre-Caspian basin in Central Asia has low density, low viscosity, high concentrations of H2S (15%) and CO2 (4%), high solution gas/oil ratio. The reservoir is lack of fresh water because of being far away onshore. Pilot test has already been implemented for the acid gas reinjection. Firstly, in our work a scheme of crude oil composition grouping with 15 compositions was presented on the basis of bottomhole sampling from DSTs of four wells. After matching PVT physical experiments including viscosity, density and gas/oil ratio and pressure–temperature (P–T) phase diagram by tuning critical properties of highly uncertain heavy components, the compositional model with phase behavior was built under meeting accuracy of phase fitting, which was used to evaluate mechanism of miscibility development in the acid gas injection process. Then using a cell-to-cell simulation method, vaporizing and/or condensing gas drive mechanisms were investigated for mixtures consisting of various proportions of CH4, CO2 and H2S in the gas injection process. Moreover, effects of gas compositions on miscible mechanisms have also been determined. With the aid of pressure-composition diagrams and pseudoternary diagrams generated from the Equation of State (EoS), pressures of First Contact Miscibility (FCM) and Multiple Contact Miscibility (MCM) for various gases mixing with the reservoir oil sample under reservoir temperature were calculated. Simulation results show that pressures of FCM are higher than those of MCM, and CO2 and H2S are able to reduce the miscible pressure. At the same time, H2S is stronger. As the CH4 content increases, both pressures of FCM and MCM are higher. But incremental values of MCM decrease. In addition, calculated envelopes of pseudoternary diagrams for mixtures of CH4, CO2 and H2S gases of varying composition with acid gas injection have features of bell shape, hourglass shape and triangle shape, which can be used to identify vaporizing and/or condensing gas drives. Finally, comparison of the real produced gas and the one deprived of its C3+ was performed to determine types of miscibility and calculate pressures of FCM and MCM. This study provides a theoretical guideline for selection of injection gas to improve miscibility and oil recovery.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document