SPE 164216

Implementing Water Flood in the Greater Burgan Field, Kuwait: Improved

Development Planning Through Pilot Testing and Field Appraisal Activities
S. Rajan, M. Al-Naqi, J. Al-Humoud, A.A. Ameen, M.N. Al-Qattan, H.H. Al-Hashash, N. Al-Enizi, S. Madhavan, A.
Al-Qattan, Kuwait Oil Company; A.D. Brooks, AAR Energy

Copyright 2013, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Middle East Oil and Gas Show and Conference held in Manama, Bahrain, 10–13 March 2013.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been
reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its
officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to
reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.

Abstract
The Greater Burgan Field is the largest clastic oilfield and the second largest oilfield in the world. First discovered in 1938,
and developed from 1946, production to date has relied on primary recovery methods. More recently secondary and enhanced
recovery techniques have been investigated and water flood is now at an advanced state of implementation. The first such
water flood project is being implemented in the Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian) Wara Formation, which is one of the main
producing reservoirs within the Greater Burgan complex. Here, production has been accompanied by steadily declining
reservoir pressure.
The Wara Formation comprises multiple sandstone units deposited in a fluvial-tidal coastal system with a total thickness of
approximately 140 – 180 feet. The reservoir exhibits a considerable degree of permeability heterogeneity. Lateral and vertical
extent, and the pressure communication between sand bodies is highly complex. Understanding of hydraulic connection and
volumetric sweep are therefore one of the key development challenges to address in this complex reservoir.
To avoid costly water disposal and to make best use of available resources the full field waterflood will re-inject produced
water. Therefore project planning required an assessment of water injectivity using several water sources and an investigation
of the required water quality requirements for the full field water flood.
A peripheral waterflood configuration has been selected for Wara reservoir taking advantage of some 1200 feet of vertical
relief between the flanks and crest of the anticlinal structure. Prediction and optimization of this waterflood project required
appraisal of structure, pressure, reservoir quality and fluid type in largely undrilled lower flanks areas.
This paper summarizes the pilot waterflood projects, flank appraisal activities and related study work to understand
hydraulic connection, reservoir properties, injectivity and reservoir performance. It describes the approach taken and the
learning points from each of the activities together with their implications for the full field water flood project.

Introduction
The Greater Burgan Field lies 35km south of Kuwait City near Ahmadi, Kuwait covering an area of over 1100km2. The
main reservoir units comprising the Greater Burgan Field are the Wara, Mauddud and Burgan Formations. The field is further
subdivided geographically into three producing areas – Burgan, Magwa and Ahmadi. These producing areas are arbitrary
surface boundaries affecting only well naming. No structural, structural or reservoir features distinguish these areas.
Large variations in reservoir characteristics are observed in Wara from North to South due to variations in the depositional
setting. Generally, the upper part of Wara is constituted of thin bars and distributary sand deposits and these are well
developed in the Northern part of the field. The middle Wara sand is well developed across the entire field, consisting of
channel sands and near shore bar sands. The lower Wara sand is a well-developed channel sand and is dominant in the
Southern part of the field. Overall, the depositional setting implies a great deal of uncertainty in the sand body dimensions,
orientations and properties and hydraulic connectivity.
Since first Wara oil production in 1948 the reservoir has exhibited a higher degree of pressure decline, compared to the
other underlying Burgan oil reservoirs. The Wara reservoir pressure at field datum depth is presented in Figure 1, with oil
production rate, producing gas oil ratio (GOR) and watercut. The figure shows a pressure decline from an initial value of
approximately 2100 psia to the current average pressure of 1500-1600 psia (all values have been corrected to the reservoir
datum depth). The figure also shows that an increase in oil production from around 1960 is marked by an increase in the field
gas oil ratio, which reflects the saturated or near-saturated condition of the reservoir. In later periods similar GOR excursions
2 SPE 164216

accompanied increases in oil rate, although the effect is reduced somewhat by the operational practice of prioritising
production from wells with lowest GOR in areas with the highest reservoir pressure. To date only small amounts of water have
been produced from the reservoir.
In an effort to address the decline in reservoir pressure, gas injection into the highest point on the structure was
commenced, starting in 1962 and continuing for some 20 years. The final cumulative volume injected was 279 billion cubic
feet of gas. This being only a small proportion of total reservoir withdrawals it was insufficient to reverse the pressure decline.
Overall, the performance of the field clearly indicates poor natural pressure support. Thick shales overlie the reservoir and
the lowest interval in the Wara formation is also highly shale prone and then underlain by the relatively low permeability
Mauddud formation. Natural pressure support is therefore limited to edge encroachment of water where sand quality and
connectivity permit, and in some areas there is influx of oil, and to a lesser degree water, from deeper reservoirs through fault
juxtaposition.
Wara reservoir PVT description has been the subject of a great deal of previous study (Ambastha et. al., 2006, Ma et. al.,
2009). Figure 2 shows the bubble points measured on Wara samples and despite a high degree of scatter in the data there
appears a fairly clear trend of saturation pressure versus depth. Other trends have been identified, for instance it appears that
bubble point is generally higher in the northern Magwa and Ahmadi areas of the field. However, for the purposes of the
present discussion we simply recognize that for all depths the initial reservoir fluids were either at or close to saturation
pressure or several hundred psi under-saturated. Clearly, from the pressure history in Figure 1, we may conclude that in large
areas of the reservoir current pressure is below bubble point. Presently, in the field there are over 200 completions available
for production, but almost half of these are currently closed to conserve reservoir energy.
To address the falling reservoir pressure a major produced water re-injection (PWRI) project was initiated in year 2009.
This project, know internally as the Wara Pressure Maintenance Project (WPMP), is set to inject 660,000 barrels of water per
day (BWPD) through 90 injection wells into the Wara reservoir from 2014.
A peripheral waterflood configuration was selected for Wara, suiting both the requirements of the Wara reservoir and
minimising impact on the development of deeper reservoirs in the “core” of the Greater Burgan Field. One important aspect of
adopting a peripheral waterflood configuration is that development was pushed towards flank areas that, having not been the
focus of historical development, were under appraised.

Project Uncertainties and Risk Management Activities

Prior to finalizing the final design of the water injection wells and facilities a systematic evaluation of risks and
uncertainties was undertaken. Within the asset these pilot tests and field appraisal activities became collectively known as the
Uncertainty Management Plan, as summarised in Table 1.

Uncertainty / Risk Area Risk Management Activity

Flank area top structure and reservoir quality Appraisal wells
Reservoir connectivity & sweep efficiency Interference tests
Waterflood pilot(s)
Injectivity Long term injectivity tests in “good”, “medium”,
“poor” areas
Waterflood pilot(s)
Specifications for injection water i.e. water Surveillance of existing produced water quality
treatment requirements Pore system characterization (clay content, pore size
distribution, etc.)
Laboratory and field flow tests with reservoir cores and
produced water
Injection tests and waterflood pilot(s)
Fluid characterization Additional fluid samples and analysis for flank areas
Asset experience with waterflood Waterflood pilots, develop know-how and scale-able
workflows
Table 1: A summary of the uncertainty management plan (UMP)

In the remainder of this paper we discuss the main risk management activities, their outcome and implications for the full
field water injection project. We discuss interference tests in the context of one of the waterflood pilots; however, many other
tests have been performed as documented by (Ambastha, 2009). Further, the work on improved fluid sampling and
characterization is the subject of a separate paper (Al-Sabea, 2013).

Appraisal of Flank Areas

Despite over 50 years of continuous development there remained significant uncertainties in the depth of top reservoir,
sand development and quality, fluid properties and the extent of water encroachment in the flank areas targeted by the
peripheral waterflood development plan. Historically, development has focused on the inner areas of the reservoir and to
SPE 164216 3

address this an eight well campaign of appraisal or “information” wells was executed prior to finalizing well locations and the
placement of water injection distribution lines.
The locations of the appraisal wells are shown in Figure 3. Each encountered a significant column of oil, in most cases
without any evidence of edge water encroachment. Also shown in Figure 3 are the resulting peripheral injection and
production wells. Hence, the appraisal campaign enabled improved the waterflood development area by placing development
wells as close to the edge of the field as possible, maximizing recovery and ensuring a minimum of oil would be pushed down-
dip into the aquifer.

Water Quality Studies

In order to correctly design the new Wara water injection facilities a comprehensive investigation of Wara mineralogy,
pore size distribution and injection brine compatibility was initiated followed by both laboratory and in-field core flood
studies. Core samples were chosen spanning the range of Wara reservoir permeabilities (range ca. 40 mD to > 1 Darcy). Pore
size distribution (PSD) from mercury porosimetry indicates mean hydraulic radius of pore throats from 4 to 11 microns and a
fairly narrow PSD for the majority of these plugs. Figure 4 is typical of the results obtained. For these samples, assuming
particles less than 0.7 of the MHR can pass without bridging (Van Oort et al, 1993), then particles up 3 microns could be
injected with less than 20% reduction in permeability.
On-site coreflooding of 30 Wara core plugs was performed using treated produced water from one of the Greater Burgan
production Gathering Centres (GC). The core flooding equipment allows the inlet GC to be subjected to various levels of
filtration, simulating the eventual facilities installed for the waterflood project. The quality of the water from the GC and after
a typical filtration step is given in Table 2. For the same water compositions the abundance of contaminant particles is
presented in Figure 5, clearly showing a large number of particles of 10 microns and greater in the untreated water. The results
of core flood testing are broadly in line with the conclusions of mercury PSD studies.

Filtration Level Total Suspended Solids Oil-in-water Average

(mg/l) (ppm v/v) Permeability
Reduction
(%)
Unfiltered GC water 18.6 9.6 93%
GC water filtered to 1 <1 26%
3 micron
Table 2: Produced water used in on-site core flood studies and the resulting average permeability reduction

The results of this study, together with injection tests described below, were used to define the specification of the Wara
waterflood water treatment facilities. The final design includes gas flotation units (GFU) and nutshell filters designed to
deliver injection water with 100% removal of particles > 10 micron and 95% removal of particles > 2 micron.

Magwa 7 Spot Water Injection Pilot

From December 2005 to February 2008 water was injected into a seven spot water flood pilot in the Magwa area of the
Greater Burgan. In this pattern one injector supports production in six producers placed 250m from the injector. Injection
water was pumped from a water source well completed below the oil water contact in the Burgan Formation (“source water”).
This water was then passed through 10 and 2 micron filters to achieve a water specification of zero oil-in-water and less than 1
mg/l total suspended solids. More details on planning, execution and interpretation of this pilot can be found in an earlier paper
(Al-Naqi et al, 2009).
Cores were obtained in two wells, the central injector and one producer. Log and core permeability data are presented in
Figure 6 for these two wells showing a similar coarsening downwards permeability sequence in both. In Figure 7 the
performance of the six production wells is shown. Production well MP-2 produced some water even before water injection,
which is interpreted as production of perched water, or water transmitted upwards into the Wara reservoir through nearby
faults. In MP-2 watercut first decreases before beginning to increase at around 0.1PV injected. At the same moment injection
water breaks through at the other 5 production wells.
The pilot results show that in spite of the expected lateral and vertical heterogeneity in the Wara reservoir the development
of watercut of these six production wells is very similar. The results indicate that good waterflood displacement efficiency can
be achieved and they provided the confidence to move towards investment in a full field waterflood.

Injectivity Testing
Following the water quality studies, discussed earlier, injectivity tests were performed in the field. It is commonly observed
that injectivity varies through time; therefore, to better understand injectivity performance several long-term injectivity tests
were executed. Recognising the variation in reservoir properties across the field three tests were performed in areas having
4 SPE 164216

different reservoir quality, classified simply as good, medium and poor quality areas. The performance of all three tests is
shown in Figure 8.
The Magwa area 7-Spot water injection pilot represents the long-term injectivity test for the good reservoir quality area,
using filtered aquifer “source water”. Interpretation of injection rates and tubing head pressures yields estimates of skin from
zero up to a maximum of 5. Further, maximum tubing head pressure in MI-1 reached 500 psia for 8000 BWPD injection rate.
This compares favourably with injection of poor quality effluent water in the subsequent Early Wara Pressure Maintenance
Project (discussed below). Here, injector THPs reach 1500 psia for similar injection rates despite similar reservoir
permeability-thickness product and similar reservoir pressure.
In a second well, representing a test in a medium reservoir quality area, filtered “source water” was again injected. Here
maximum tubing head pressure reached 750 psia for 8000 BWPD injection rate. Again, this performance is superior to the
performance of wells in the Early Wara Pressure Maintenance Project.
In a third well, representing a poor reservoir quality area, maximum tubing head pressure reached 1000 psia for 3400
BWPD of filtered “source water”. In this same well injection was later switched to produced water, taken from a nearby field
Gathering Centre. There is some variability in injection rate, but close inspection of Figure 8 shows that for a rate around 3400
BWPD the tubing head pressure has increased to 1600 psia.
All these observations are broadly consistent with the results of the water quality studies presented in Table 2, above. From
the perspective of field development planning these tests;
1. Confirmed the requirement for high quality injection water.
2. Provided a reasonable means to estimate injection rates per well and hence, the number of injectors required.
3. Confirmed that unfiltered water, whilst not optimal, could still be injected, but with higher tubing head pressures.

Early Wara Pressure Maintenance Project

Following the success of the injectivity tests, the water flood project was moved to the next, much larger step of risk
mitigation and understanding of waterflood performance - referred to as the Early Wara Pressure Maintenance Project or
EWPMP. This fast track waterflood pilot was planned using water of disposal specification, this being the only source of
significant volumes immediately available. However, by this point it was known that water of this quality could be injected,
albeit at elevated tubing header pressure, after the results of one injectivity test, discussed above. Use of less-than-ideal water
quality was considered an acceptable trade-off to accelerate the waterflood results. From initiation of this project in June 2009
only 6 months elapsed before first water injection in December of that year.
A small area in South-Western part of the Burgan field was selected consisting of 33 wells, including 15 producers, 7
injectors and 11 observation wells, the producers located on either side to injector line, with 7 in the flanks and 8 in the up dip
direction. The main objectives of the project were to;
 Gain early understanding of reservoir connectivity and injectivity.
 Evaluate spacing between injectors and producers.
 Develop scale-able work practices for water injection management
 Test and confirm injector, producer and water source completion concepts
Having a coastal fluvial-tidal depositional setting the continuity of Wara sand bodies at kilometre scale was considered to
be a major project uncertainty. Important data on connectivity was acquired even from the initial start-up of water injection.
This was planned in stages, starting with 3 injectors (INJ-1, INJ-4 and INJ-7), to act as an interference study to understand the
connectivity between injectors and producers. Gauges were lowered in majority of the producers and injectors one week
before the start of water injection to record the bottom hole pressure changes. The analysis of the pressure data recorded during
this month long study established connectivity between many injectors and producers and also injector to injector
communication (Figure 9). The distance between injectors and producers (1 to 2km separation) is greater in the up dip
direction, hence a clearer interference signal was observed between injectors and down dip producers (typically ~1km
separation).
These encouraging findings were later supported by a comprehensive programme of pressure observations during
waterflood using a combination of wireline deployed memory gauges and, importantly, pressure gauges run with the Electrical
Submersible Pumps (ESPs). As shown in Figure 10 (left) the reservoir responded well to water injection in the pilot area, the
average pressure in the area having increased by about 100 psi since start of water injection. A similar response can be seen in
the flowing pressures at the ESP intake point Figure 10 (right). The clear relationship between both average and flowing
pressures and the instantaneous voidage replacement ratio (VRR) is a further indication of good reservoir connectivity.
Following one year of stable waterflood different chemical tracers were injected into all 7 injectors to establish hydraulic
communication and measure breakthrough time. Since injection water samples have been collected from producers at regular
interval and analyzed to detect presence of tracer. To date tracer has been detected in only one producer (FP-7) 342 days after
injection into the adjacent injector INJ-7 (Figure 9).
The production performance of the pilot area has shown a continuous decrease in water cut (Figure 11). Initially all 7 wells
in the flank had water cut up to 70 % but subsequent to injection 5 wells show a decreasing trend in water cut. This is taken as
an indication of good sweep and that oil is being displaced towards these wells. Interestingly, the producer FP-7, where tracer
breakthrough has occurred also shows a decreasing trend in water cut. This is interpreted as injection water breakthrough
SPE 164216 5

having occurred in only one relatively minor layer. From 8 up dip producers 4 have remained dry since the beginning of
injection, whereas 2 wells exhibit a decreasing trend in watercut and only 2 exhibit a trend of increasing watercut. It appears
that better injection support is provided to the flank producers compared to the up dip producers, which is attributed to
increased distance from the injection wells.
Overall, the good performance of the pilot in terms of pressure response, connectivity and reducing watercut in production
wells confirms the choice of 1 kilometre injector producer as the initial spacing for the full field project.
In terms of injectivity the pilot results have been less positive, but as mentioned earlier, the quality of available injection
water was known to be sub-optimal. Because the EWPMP project was implemented so quickly, over a period of only 6
months, the level of water treatment would be constrained by the limitations of existing water treatment facilities. To date
typical injection water quality is 5-10 mg /l TSS and 5-30 mg/l OIW.
Consequently, a gradual decline in injectivity has been observed in all injectors. Hall plots, such as Figure 12, are a useful
tool to identify decreases in injectivity, which correlate well with periods of poor injection water quality. Pressure fall-off
studies confirm the extent of wellbore damage with interpreted skin factors varying between 10 and 50. There is no evidence
for induced hydraulic fractures in any of the injection wells. Periodic stimulation jobs are carried out to maintain injectivity,
with the majority of stimulations relying on cleaning the perforations by acid wash at a frequency of 1-2 jobs per year. Profiles
measured using production logging tools often indicate that particular layers have preferential damage and a continuing
challenge is to plan effective stimulations that restores both injectivity and injection profile.

Preparing to manage a full field waterflood

Aside from technical uncertainties and challenges associated with waterflood in such a complex reservoir there is the
additional challenge of the ongoing management and optimization of such a large project in a giant reservoir. For instance the
injection water will be distributed from a single centralised injection plant but the production wells receiving pressure support
will be connected to one of seven different gathering centres and will be managed by one of four field development teams.
Hence the EWPMP pilot project was used an opportunity to develop, standardised, automated processes and workflows
capable of handling large amounts of data from hundreds of injection and production wells (Adbul Rahman, 2012). The result
is a waterflood performance monitoring system equipped with workflows and analysis tools tailored to monitoring and
optimising a waterflood. The system is served with production and injection well data sent in real time from the field to a data
historian server. Thereafter the system comprises several “layers” of QA/QC, data integration, calculation, presentation and
reporting. For instance;
 Automated well models use well data to calculate production rate in real-time
 Voidage replacement ratio (VRR) calculated in real time using calculated production rate and injection flow meter
readings
 Complete integration with the company’s corporate database where, for instance, monthly allocated rates and
volumes, water quality reports etc. are stored
 Exception based reporting to flag when, for instance, a well operates outside a pre-set range
 An engineering analysis layer equipped with standardized plots and tools for performance evaluation (Hall Plot,
producer and injector performance plots, automated isobar & watercut maps etc.)
 A performance advisory layer which displays analysis results and progress against pre-set KPIs

Conclusions
In Greater Burgan the field’s first major waterflood project is being implemented in the heterogeneous Wara reservoir. The
risks and uncertainties in this project have been effectively managed by adopting a structured approach to risk management.
This led to a number of pilot waterflood projects, flank appraisal activities and related study work that have been used to
improve the waterflood development plan, specifically;

 A programme of appraisal wells allowed the development wells to be located optimally around the periphery of
the field.
 Careful characterization of reservoir core samples and in-field core flood experiments established the filtration
requirements for sustainable injection of produced water
 Injection of good quality aquifer, similar in specification to the project injection quality, can be sustained over
long periods with little apparent formation damage
 Re-injection of unfiltered produced water leads to significantly reduced injectivity
 Pilot waterflood tests confirm good hydraulic connection between production injectors at length scales up to 1-
2km. The initial project well spacing is thus selected as 1km.
 As well as providing essential data on waterflood performance the EWPMP project has been used to develop
workflows and an IT waterflood management system that can be scaled up to the full field project.
6 SPE 164216

Acknowledgement
The authors wish to thank the management of Kuwait Oil Company and Kuwait Ministry of Oil for their approval to publish
this paper. Special thanks are offered to Mr. Jamal Al-Humoud, Manager Fields Development (South and East Kuwait Asset
Group) and Mr. Meqdad Al-Naqi, Team Leader Reservoir Growth Projects for their support in the publication of this paper.
The authors also wish to thank all staff, past and present, who have contributed to the seven years of work presented in this
paper.

References
Al-Sabea, S.H. et al, 2013, Downhole Analysis and Laboratory Analysis, Key Complementary Techniques for a
Comprehensive and Effective Fluid Characterisation, SPE 164239
Adbul Rahman, B. et al, 2012, An Integrated Solution to Effective Waterflood Surveillance and Pressure Maintenance: A
KOC Pilot Project of Greater Burgan Field, Kuwait, SPE 154009
Ambastha, A. et al, 2009, Observations from a Fieldwide Pressure Data Acquisition Campaign in the Wara Formation of the
Greater Burgan Field, Kuwait
Al-Ajmi, H. et al, 2007, Effluent Water Disposal Experiences in the Greater Burgan Field of Kuwait, IPTC11551
Al-Naqi, M. et al, 2009, Lessons Learned From the First Water Flood Pilot Project in a Clastic Reservoir in the Greater
Burgan Field in Kuwait, SPE 120427
Ma, E. et al, 2009, Development of a Full Field Parallel Model to Design Pressure Maintenance Project in the Wara Reservoir,
Greater Burgan Field, Kuwait, SPE 120053
Ambastha, A. et al, 2006, Full Field Parallel Simulation Model: A Unique Tool for Reservoir Management of the Greater
Burgan Oil Field, SPE 102281
Al-Khaledi, S. et al, 2010, Execution of Brownfield Projects, SPE 137905
Desai, S. et al, 2009, Development of an Integrated Reservoir Surveillance Process for the World’s Second Largest Field in
Kuwait, SPE 120229
Van Oort et al, 1993, Impairment by Suspended Solids Invasion, Testing and Prediction, SPE 23822
SPE 164216 7

Figure 1: Wara reservoir performance. Values of GOR have been divided by 1000 for ease of presentation and actual
values of oil rate have been withheld.

3200

3400

3600
Sample Depth (ft‐TVDss)

3800

4000

4200

4400

4600
1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 2100 2200
Pb (psi)

Figure 2: Wara bubble point pressure measurements. The depth from which the sample is obtained is taken as the mid
point of the perforated interval. The blue line (right) is the approximate initial reservoir pressure.
8 SPE 164216

Figure 3: Map showing the top reservoir depth of the Wara reservoir and the location of 8 appraisal or “information’
wells (red points). These wells were drilled prior to finalization of development injection (blue points) and production
well locations (green points).
SPE 164216 9

Permeability Distribution vs Pore Throat Radius (Wara Selected Plugs)

1.2

Normalised Permeability Distribution 1

0.8

Well BG 540 - Sample 16

0.6
Well BG 540 - Sample 15
Well BG 540 - Sample 14
Well BG 540 - Sample 8
0.4 Well BG 540 - sample 7

0.2

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Pore Throat Radius (microns)

Figure 4: Normalised permeability distribution for selected samples, calculated from mercury injection capillary
pressure data

100000
number of particles > d (micron) in 0.1ml

10000

1000

Unfiltered
100
3 micron filtered

10

1
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
Particle Size (micron)

Figure 5: Injection waters used in on-site coreflooding experiments. The size and distribution of particles in a Greater
Burgan Gathering Centre effluent water (red) and after filtration by 3 micron filter (blue).
10 SPE 164216

Figure 6: A correlation panel showing two wells from the Magwa area 7 spot water injection pilot. The blue curves are
core permeability plotted on a linear scale, showing higher permeability sands towards the base of the sequence.

1.0
MP‐1
0.9 MP‐2

0.8 MP‐3
MP‐4
0.7
Water Cut (fraction)

MP‐5
0.6 MP‐6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0
0.000 0.200 0.400 0.600 0.800 1.000
PV Injected (fraction)

Figure 7: Water cut development versus pore volumes injected for the Magwa area 7 spot water injection pilot.
SPE 164216 11

Long Term Injectivity Test in Wara

10000
Source Water
Source Water
-Medium-
-Medium-
8000

6000

4000 Source Water

-Poor- Effluent Water
-Poor-
2000

0
Jan-06 Nov-06 Sep-07 Jul-08 Apr-09 Feb-10 Dec-10
Poor quality area_Inj Rate_Effluent water
Poor quality area_Inj Press_Effluent water
Poor quality area_Inj Rate_Source water
Poor quality area _Inj Press_Source water
Medium quality_Inv 7 Spot_Inj Rate_Source water
Medium quality_Inv 7 Spot_Inj Press_Source water
Medium quality area_Inj Rate
Medium quality area_Inj Press

Figure 8: Comparison of long-term injectivity test results conducted at different reservoir quality areas using filtered
water from water source well and effluent water from disposal

→ Wells In Communication
─ No Communication/Possible Barrier Present
→ Possible Communication

Figure 9: The field layout for EWPMP. Results from an interference test performed at start-up are indicated by green
and red hashed lines. Lack of communication, potentially indicating flow barriers is indicated by black dashed lines.
Breakthrough of tracer from INJ7 to FP-7 is indicated by a yellow shaded polygon.
12 SPE 164216

1800 5.0

1500 4.0

Pump Intake Pressure, psi

1200 3.0

VRR_Est
900 2.0

600 1.0

300 0.0
FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC
2012

Figure 10: (left) There is a clear relationship between average reservoir pressure and instantaneous voidage
replacement ratio (VRR). (Right) Similar trends can be seen in the ESP pump intake pressure data.

Figure 11: Watercut performance of the EWPMP pilot waterflood. (Left) Average watercut from 15 producing wells
exhibits a continuous downward trend and (right) trends for individual wells shown decreasing watercut except in only
2 cases.
1500 37500000 75

1200 30000000 60
Cum Pressure_Daily
Part_Dist

OIW

900 22500000 45

600 15000000 30
TSS

300 7500000 15

0 0
0 1500 3000 4500 6000 7500
0

Cum Water Inj ( Mbbl )

Figure 12: A Hall Plot for a typical EWPMP injection well