University

of Zakho

Secondary Recovery
Lecture 01
Primary Mechanism

4th Year- Fall 2022

Abdolsalam Daneshvar
Petroleum Engineering Dept.
College of Engineering
University of Zakho
 Reference books
1. Sylvester Okotie, Bibobra Ikporo, “Reservoir Engineering
Fundamentals and Applications”, Springer, 2019.
2. Boyun Guo, Xinghui Lou Liu and Xuehao Tan, “Petroleum
Production Engineering”2nd edition, Gulf Publishing, 2017.
3. G. Paul Willhite, “Water Flooding”, SPE, 1986.

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Course Syllabus
❑ Part # 1 ❑ Part #2

➢ Introduction ➢ Sucker road Pump system

➢ Recovery definitions and differences ➢ Electrical submersible pumps (ESP)
➢ Reservoir drive mechanism
➢ Other lift methods
➢ Solution gas drive, gravity drainage
➢ Water flooding & pressure maintenance
➢ Gas cap expansion drive
➢ Water flood design, injection rates, characteristics
➢ Water drive, combination drive
➢ Estimating Water flooding performance
➢ Artificial lift Methods
➢ Gas lift ➢ Gas injection, phase diagram

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# Introduction

Hydrocarbon Recovery
Hydrocarbon recovery occurs through two main processes:
1) Primary Recovery
2) Supplementary Recovery
Primary recovery refers to the volume of
hydrocarbon produced by the natural supplementary or secondary hydrocarbon
energy prevailing in the reservoir and/or recovery refers to the volume of
artificial lift through a single wellbore. hydrocarbon produced as a result of the
addition of energy into the reservoir, such as
fluid injection, to complement or increase
the original energy within the reservoir.

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# Introduction

HC Recovery Operation: classification by chronology

Oil recovery operations traditionally have been subdivided into three stages: primary, secondary, and tertiary.
➢ Historically, these stages describes the production from a reservoir in a chronological sense.
❑ Primary production, the initial production stage, results from the displacement energy naturally existing
in a reservoir.
❑ Secondary recovery, the second stage of operations, usually is implement after primary production
declined. Traditional secondary recovery processes are waterflooding, pressure maintenance, and gas
injection, although the term secondary recovery is now almost synonymous with waterflooding.
❑ Tertiary recovery, the third stage of production, is that obtains after waterflooding (or whatever secondary
process was used). Tertiary processes uses miscible gases, chemicals, and/or thermal energy to displace
additional oil after the secondary recovery process became uneconomical.

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# Primary Recovery

Reservoir Drive Mechanisms

➢ The production of hydrocarbon from a reservoir into the wellbore involves several stages of recovery.

There are six primary drive mechanisms

➢ The available drive mechanisms determine
the performance of the hydrocarbon
reservoir. When the hydrocarbon fluids are
1) Solution Gas (Depletion) Drive
produced by the natural energy of the 2) Water Drive
reservoir, it is termed primary recovery; 3) Gas Cap Expansion (segregation) Drive
which is further classified based on the 4) Rock Compressibility and Connate
dominant energy responsible for primary Water Expansion Drive
5) Gravity Drainage
production.
6) Combination Drive

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# Primary Recovery

Primary Oil Recovery (Factor)

➢ Hydrocarbon reservoirs are unique.

➢ Each reservoir presents its own geometric form, geological rock
properties, fluid characteristics, and primary driving mechanism.
➢ Primary recovery from oil reservoirs is influenced by reservoir
rock properties, fluid properties, and geological heterogeneities.
➢ On a worldwide basis, the most common primary oil recovery
factors range from 20% and 40%, with an average around 34%,
while the remainder of hydrocarbon is left behind in the reservoir.
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# Primary Recovery

Primary Oil Recovery (Factor)

❑ For Determining the Reservoir Drive mechanism Some Basic Data are Required:

1) Reservoir pressure and rate of decline

of reservoir pressure over a period of time.

2) The character of the reservoir fluids

3) The production rate (q)

4) Gas-Oil Ratio

5) Water-Oil Ratio

6) The cumulative production of oil, gas

and water
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# Primary Recovery

Solution Gas (Depletion) Drive

➢ A solution gas or depletion drive reservoir is a
recovery mechanism where the gas liberating
out of the solution (oil) provides the major
source of energy.

➢ we can define it as the oil recovery mechanism

that occurs when the original quantity of oil plus
all its original dissolved gas expansion as a
result of fluid production from its reservoir
rock. #1

This drive mechanism is

represented mathematically as:
#2
Dissolved gas/depletion drive reservoir
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# Primary Recovery

Solution Gas (Depletion) Drive: Equation Index

Oil Zone Expansion = N ( Bo − Boi ) + ( Rsi − Rs ) Bg  N ( Bo − Boi ) + ( Rsi − Rs ) Bg 
DDI =
Hydrocarbon Voidage = N p  Bo + ( R p − Rs ) Bg  
N p Bo + ( R p − Rs ) Bg 
N ✓ Stock tank oil initially In place
B
✓ Oil formation volume factor
 o
 Boi ✓ Initial oil formation volume factor  N p ✓ Cumulative oil produced
 
 Rs ✓ Solution gas-oil ratio  R p ✓ Cumulative produce gas-oil ratio
 Rsi ✓ Initial solution gas-oil ratio

 Bg ✓ Gas formation volume factor

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# Primary Recovery

Solution Gas (Depletion) Drive Index: Example

❑ A hydrocarbon reservoir has the following production and fluid data:
a) Determine the expansion of the original oil plus dissolved gas in MMrb
b) Determine the Hydrocarbon Voidage
c) Calculate the percent contributions of the solution Gas (DDI) to the
underground hydrocarbon production.
Hydrocarbon Reservoir properties
oil FVF= 1.6015 rb/stb Gas FVF= 0.0006670 rb/stb
Current solution GOR= 1135 scf/stb Initial solution GOR= 1164 scf/stb
Cumulative Oil Produced= 4.003 MMstb Stock oil tank initially in place= 49.55 MMstb
Initial oil FVF =1.6186 rb/stb Cum. Produced GOR= 2189 scf/stb

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# Primary Recovery

Example Solution:
a) Expansion of original oil plus dissolved gas (oil zone expansion)

oil zone expansion plus disolved gas = 𝑁 𝐵𝑜 − 𝐵𝑜𝑖 + 𝑅𝑠𝑖 − 𝑅𝑠 𝐵𝑔

= 49550000 1.6015 − 1.6186 + 1164 − 1135 0.0006670 = 4955000 ∗ 0.002243𝑟𝑏
= 111,140.65𝑟𝑏 = 0.11114065𝑀𝑀𝑟𝑏

b) Hydrocarbon Voidage
 
= N p Bo + ( R p − Rs ) Bg = 4.003 *106 1.6015 + ( 2189 − 1135 ) 0.0006670
= 9224985.554rb

111140.65rb Percentage of contributions of the

c) = = 0.012048  1.2% various fluids to the underground
9224985.55rb
hydrocarbon production.

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# Primary Recovery

The effect of Solution Gas drive on Production Characteristics

1) Pressure: a) declines rapidly and steadily

b) decline rate is dependent on production rate

a) declines rapidly at first as oil mobility decreases

2) Oil Rate:
b) steady decline thereafter
a) Increases rapidly as free gas saturation increases.
3) Producing GOR: b) Thereafter, decreases rapidly as the remaining oil contains
less solution gas.
4) Water Production: Mostly negligible as depletion type reservoirs are volumetric systems.

5) Ultimate Oil Recovery: It may vary from less than 5% to about 30%.

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