Qualification of unrecovered reserves due to production process dynamics in water-drive reservoirs

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

1-1-2005

Abstract

In water-drive reservoirs, primary production may leave behind significant amount of unrecovered oil in place. Typically, reservoir heterogeneity would be considered the reason for poor recovery and water flooding would be used for remediation. However, even homogeneous reservoir systems may not be well swept with encroaching water if a production schedule is not designed in view of the reservoir properties. This paper presents a numerical simulation study aimed at evaluating the water breakthrough time and the amount of bypassed oil in reservoirs under edge-water and bottom-water drives. Sensitivity to the viscous and gravity forces is analyzed for different combinations of the injection rate, oil viscosity and dip angle. Numerical simulation was also used to study how a well becomes inactive due to water invasion. In the edge-water systems, three different stages of the oil bypassing process are analyzed; the formation of a water tongue, salient and cone. The results show that water coning - in the bottom water systems, and the combined effect of water under-running, salient and coning – in the edge-water systems, may cause up to 93% and 70% of oil being by-passed, respectively.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Canadian International Petroleum Conference 2005, CIPC 2005

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