Oil Recovery Techniques

Part of “Advanced Waterflooding” Course

For Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), Kuwait
2022

Hesham Mokhtar Ali

Senior Reservoir Engineer
in/heshammokhtarali/
1
 The Recovery Process
• For the full system, the recovery efficiency can be very complicated.
• Therefore, the reservoir simulation introduces a significant tool for understanding reservoir dynamics
Pore sc a le Dr ain age Sw e e p C ut-of fs
Pore ScaleeEfficiency
f ficie nc y Drainage Sweep Efficiency Cut-offs
Ab ility to C on ne c tion o f Ca p tu re of mo bile P hy sica l & co m m e rc ia l c on s tra in ts
disp la ce o il/ ga s w e lls to o il/ ga s hy dro ca rbo ns b y w ell s
R ock / fl ui d type C ompa r t ment s W ell Recov er y proc ess ; A qui fer inf lux ; WO R ; G O R; L icense t er ms ;
R ecov ery pr oces s t ype/ s pacing K v /K h; Di p, K x/ K y i nject ion; f acilities desi gn ex port l imit s
ex pans iv it y

RF =
Recovery
Efficiency
E ps
* Ed
* Es
*
Ec

A r eal
* V ert ica l Re ser voir
e ner g y
* F acilitie s
* C o mm erc ia l

Recovery Process: Drilling: Infill, Non- Well-work: Offtake Sustain Rate: Reservoir Energy
waterflood, EOR Conventional Wells, management by (Injection, Artificial Lift,
peripheral or in-field pools zones, layers Compression), Facilities
upgrades
 Recovery Techniques?
• Natural reservoir energy (primary
recovery)
• Improved recovery methods:
• Pressure maintenance (Gas
injection & Waterflooding)
• Thermal recovery
• Chemical flooding
– Mobility control by adding
polymers to reduce the mobility
of the injected water,
– Interfacial tension (IFT)
reduction by using surfactants,
and/or alkalis.
• Miscible flooding
 Incremental Recovery
• A comparison of three methods:

– Surfactant-Polymer (SP)
flooding has the highest
recovery factor relative to
polymer and water flooding.

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 Oil Recovery Process
• Primary recovery:
– The production of
hydrocarbons under the
natural driving mechanisms
present in the reservoir.

• Secondary recovery:
– The additional recovery
resulting from the
conventional methods of Target for different crude oil systems
water injection and
immiscible gas injection. Oil recovery categories
 Constant Pressure Displacement
Gas Injection
• Advantages
– Pressure support
– Good sweep if gravity stable
– Fewer injection wells
– Gas “storage” for later use
• Disadvantages
– Gas source required
– Adverse viscosity ratio
– CAPEX & OPEX
Water Injection
• Advantages
– Control well placement
• Disadvantages
– Adequate water source required
– Water quality issues
– Compatibility with formation (e.g., clay swelling)
– CAPEX: facilities, source, wells, etc.
– OPEX: treatment, handling, fuel, etc.
6
 Typical Production Performance
• For many fields, especially smaller ones, the plateau phase can be very short, while large fields can stay
several decades at the plateau production level.

Peak Oil Plateau

Decline

Prod. BU Further Explorations

First Oil
Abandonment (EUR)

Discovery
 Maximizing The Asset Value
 Techniques to identify opportunities:
 Well interventions: acid jobs, squeezes, recompletions, re-fracturing jobs

 Wells to shut in or re-activate

 Improved waterflood management

 Goal: Improve production/recovery efficiency. Oilfield Development Operations

1 2 3 4

Waterflooding has a
Cumulative production
significant rule for
increasing the UR.
Extend field lifetime

Payout time

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 Waterflooding?
• It is a secondary recovery technique of
increasing the oil production.

• Over time, the pressure in an oil reservoir slowly

and steadily decreases and as a result the
production rate decreases.

• Applications:
– Maintain Reservoir Pressure – Pressure
Maintenance
– Supplement Natural Water Influx
– Waterflood dominates processes
– Relatively low cost
– General availability of water
– Ease of application water injection
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 The Right Waterflooding
• It involves optimized design
for ALL project components: Right Volume
– Water injectors (number,
spacing, locations, etc.)
– Water injected (quality,
compatibility, properties).
– Production wells (optimum
production rates, well
monitoring, performance
evaluation).

Right Quality
Right Time
– Production data
(production rates, volume,
ratios)

Right Place
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 How Does a Water Injection Work?
• Inject water on the peripherals on the reservoir.
• The injected water will displace/push oil towards
the producing wells for supporting reservoir
pressure.
• Waterflooding increases oil recovery by 2 Injectors Oil Producers
mechanisms
• Pressure maintenance
• Displacement of oil by water
• Both processes are dynamic displacement processes.
Waterflooding: injection pattern displace oil with
water
• Use injector-producer patterns to sweep oil. FWL

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 Value of Waterflooding
• Carbonate reservoir FDP

• Gulf of Suez, Egypt

• The anticipated production from capital

investment and work programs comprising
the various elements of this field
development plan (FDP).

• When properly managed, the WF may

recover up to 50% of OOIP.

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 Recovery Process Decision Tree
• Pressure Maintenance:
– Initiated when reservoir pressure is relatively high
– A dynamic displacement process
– The pressure and saturation history can have a significant impact on the recovery efficiency.

Pressure Maintenance
N Y

Reinject gas Gas or Water

N Y G W

Depletion Depletion/Gas Gas Drive Aquifer Water Influx

Drive Y N

Strong Aquifer Pattern WF

Y N

Water Drive Peripheral WF 13

 Combination Depletion & Displacement
• Depletion is often assisted by natural water drive
– Apply displacement, but with declining pressure
• Weak or dead aquifers are often supplemented with peripheral
water injection
– Apply displacement; pressure depends on voidage
replacement rates
Injection well
• Pattern flood
– Better pressure maintenance for low permeability
– More appropriate for low dip
– High rate when qcrit is low
• Downdip peripheral
– Fewer wells
– Better sweep when gravity stable

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 Waterflooding Development Options
• When making a choice Water injection Waterflooding
between:
– Peripheral water injection
(e.g. Injection wells drilled
near the original OWC)
– Pattern water injection
schemes.
• Controlling factors:
– Well injectivity
– Injector/producer ratio,
– Rate of throughput,
– Sweep efficiency

Peripheral Pattern 15
 Waterflood Patterns
 Peripheral (at the edge or periphery of the reservoir)
• Advantages: Better areal sweep, increase displacement efficiency,
for partial water drive reservoir, delayed water Breakthrough
• Disadvantage: The response to the water injection is limited to the
producers, delayed field respond
• Uses: in smaller reservoirs or combination with pattern

 Pattern (irregular and regular repeating patterns)

• Advantages: Faster fill-up and pressurization, Faster field
response to flood, High sweep efficiency
• Disadvantage: High investment, Early water BT, Adverse MR

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 Peripheral vs. Pattern
• Peripheral (bottom up) flood may be preferable:
• Relatively thick reservoirs with good vertical communication
• Reservoirs with high dip
• Water injection near the original OWC
– Supplementation of peripheral injection with infield/pattern injectors may also be required in case of
• Relatively low permeability
• Significant lateral distance between injectors & producers (inadequate support at crestal
producers).
• Pattern water injection is best suited for
• Reservoirs with poor vertical communication (little advantage from oil/water gravity segregation).
– The optimal flood patterns (5-spot, 7-spot, 9-spot patterns, etc.) are a function of:
• Fault patterns
• Areal heterogeneity
• Reservoir anisotropy
• Mobility ratio
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 Water Injection vs. Flooding
• As late as the mid-60’s, Five - spot
Injectors
waterfloods commonly
started as peripheral
floods.
Producers
• This works in fields with
high permeability but is
not a first choice in low-
permeability fields.

• Injector/producer patterns
sweep oil from injectors to
producers more
effectively as they
increase reservoir
Production well
pressure. Injection well
Future inj. well

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 Waterflood Patterns
• Direct Line Drive
• All wells line up in a
rectangular grid system.
Injection
• Staggered Line Drive Well
• Producers are shifted
Production
1/2 pattern from Well
injectors.
No-flow
• The staggered line drive Boundary
has better areal sweep
efficiency than the direct Direct Drive Staggered Drive
line drive.

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 Waterflood Patterns
 1 : 1 injector-to-producer ratio

 Most common pattern used Injection well

in waterflooding
Production
 Uniform well spacing well
 High sweep efficiency
No-flow
 Regular and inverted 5-spot boundary
are identical

 Special case of a staggered

line drive with square drilling
pattern

5-Spot Pattern
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 Waterflood Patterns
 Irregular spacing

 If used, inverted pattern preferred - has more production than injection wells

 May be used for pilot floods in normal pattern form because it results in good control of flow during a test
flood
Injection
Well

Production
Well

No-flow
Boundary
Normal Inverted

7-Spot Pattern
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 Peripheral Injection
• Offshore oil filed
• Gulf of Suez, Egypt

6000

Reservoir pressure trend

5000
B-1
4000
Start waterflooding
Pressure, psi

3000
H-11

2000
G-9
1000

0
Feb-82 Nov-84 Aug-87 May-90 Jan-93 Oct-95 Jul-98 Apr-01
Date
 In-Fill Patterns
• Reasons
• Reservoir complexity
• Lack of lateral pay continuity
1
• Lack of injection support
• Unfavorable injection distribution 2

• Actions

1• New field - Peripheral waterflood

2• Matured field - Uniform In-fill patterns

 Ideal Waterflood Project
• Homogeneous and non-fractured reservoir
• Non-partitioned, isotropic (Kx = Ky), and continuous pay
• High porosity & permeability
• Low Kv/Kh ratio for flat structures
• No water-sensitive clays
• Water-wet rock
• High transmissibility between flanks and center (for peripheral injection scheme)
• Low oil viscosity
• Average reservoir pressure higher than bubble point pressure (no free gas saturation)
• Thick oil column with small oil-water transition zone
• Low initial water saturation in oil column
• Minimal gas saturation in oil column & No gas cap
• Availability of injection water (water source)
• Water-water compatibility
• On-shore location
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 Hesham Mokhtar
Hesham Mokhtar

Hesham Mokhtar
Hesham Mokhtar
Hesham Mokhtar
Hesham Mokhtar