SPE 87045 To Improve Benefits by Injection Well Treatment

Genlin Tian SPE, Australia School of Petroleum, University of Adelaide, Cheng Tao, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Renwei Qu, Chang He, Shenli Oilfield, Sinopec, Jianjiang Deng, Yinte Chemicals LTD, Qingjun Yang, China University of Geoscience, Wuhan

Copyright 2004, Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc. This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Asia Pacific Conference on Integrated Modelling for Asset Management held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 29-30 March 2004. 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, as presented, have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Papers presented at SPE meetings are subject to publication review by Editorial Committees of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper for commercial purposes 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 where and by whom the paper was presented. Write Librarian, SPE, P.O. Box 833836, Richardson, TX 75083-3836 U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435.

The total cost was US$ 335422. Increased oil was 34300 Ton. With price of 1250 RMB/t and cost of 443 RMB, the benefit was 24896100 RMB, eg US$ 3 Mill.. From this can be seen that suitable well treatment is very important to mature oilfield. And it can also have obvious benefit. Introduction For oilfield development, water flooding is still the domain method, although there are different methods of IOR/EOR in study and application, 1-3. As most of oilfield, Shenli Oilfiled in east of China was also designed for water flooding from very beginning. Because of long time intensive water flooding, reservoirs of Shenli oilfield became more heterogeneous. Permeability differences increased dramatically because of sand and clay was also produced with oil. Even there were big channels formed in the reservoir. So water flooding efficiency is very low and water cut is very high. The beneficial of such reservoirs is also very low. Shenli oilfield was formed by river depositions around 1000 meters deep. Formation sand was not strongly consolidated by over burden pressure. During water flooding, sand was produce with oil. Permeability increased along the water flow path. In some areas, even there was no or less sand grains there just like big channels. Such higher permeability zones and big channels made water flooding inefficiently. Even with polymer flooding, it broke through quickly with high concentration produced. This was like there were high permeability thieve layers. This must be shut off properly to make flooding more efficiently. As it is known wells are small holes in the oilfield. When water or other fliud is injected or produced, flow lines are concentrated around both injection and producing wells. Near well areas are flooded much more intensively than other interior areas. Most of higher permeability regions and big channels are around wells. These higher permeability zones and channels play a very important role for lower efficiency of displacement and higher water cut of water and polymer flooding. There are different ways to improve water flooding efficiency. Some of them are high costly. As it is known from that oil recovery is determined by both displacement efficiency and sweep efficiency. With above analysis, treatment of near well area can change water or polymer flow directions. Some unsweept area can be flooded. More residual oil can be driven out by higher sweep efficiency to obtaine a higher oi recovery. There are also mechanical water shut off techniques, but they

Abstract In this paper, development of a new well treatment method using in situ gelation as well as the pilot test have been presented. The result of the pilot test demonstrated good success in both technical and economic aspects. For mature oilfields, water cut is normally very high. East part of Shenli oilfield in China is in such category. Water cut of most wells are high than 90%. Some of them are even higher than 95%. That means water flooding efficiency is very lower. Because of employment and economic problems, such oilfield must still keep on operation. In some regions, polymer flooding has been conducted. But it breaks through very quickly. From the break through and other diagnose, it is known that after long time of water flooding, the heterogeneous of the reservoir has been increased, even there are big channels between injection wells and production wells. In order to improve oil recovery in such reservoirs, a injection modification technique has been developed. This method is aimed to shut off big channel near injection wells. By this method, different chemicals were mixed together on the well location. The solution has low viscosity near as injected water. Such solution is pumped into the reservoir by removable pump and close the well 48 hrs for reaction. After reaction, such chemical solution became very strong gel filled in the pores of reservoir. Because during the time of injection, it flew into big channel first. After reaction, big channels has been shut off. In a pilot test project, 14 injection wells have been treated with this injection modification technique. Reduction of water cut and increase of pressure indicate a good result. It also presented a very good economic benefit for mature oilfield. In this project, the chemical investment was US$. 335,400. Research cost was US$ 96385. Labour cost was US$ 34700.

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SPE 87045

also have disvantages4. They can also solve typical problems along the well wall, but can not solve the problem of reservoir heterogeneous. In order to achieve this, well treatment technical has been developed. From screening with pressure and other production data, wells need to be treated can be selected. Low viscosity fluids were developed in order to flow in the same way as water or polymer. Such fluids can react in reservoir conditions. After reaction, their viscosities will become very high. So it can shut off higher permeability zones and big channels. After careful study in the lab, pilot test had been conducted in the field. From the result, it is known that such treatment was successful and beneficial. Such technical has more applicable potential. Development of Water Shut off Materials This well treatment technology consisited of three main parts: well selection, chmicals screening and operation and operaion. Materials were an important part for this project. In a heterogenerous reservoir, both flow direction and flow rate were deponded on the viscosity of injected fluids. Big channels were hoped to be shuted off as much as possible with less influence to the low permeability areas. Low visicosity fluids could fow in nearly the same way as water but couldnt shut off the channel. High viscosity fluids would influence the flow direction at very beginning and difficulty to be injected. Considering both injection ability and shut off effect, in situ polymerization and gelation technics had been used. With this idea, low visicosity solution was prepeared on the ground. After injection, the solution reacts in reservoir to form a shut off polymer barrier. Treatment Materials. There are a lot of chemicals could be used to form gels. But not every could have good properties in typical reservoir conditions. Compositions should be chosen in coherent with reservoir conditions. From series of experiments, two kinds of polymer gels have been developed: movable and unmovable. They had general structure as Fig.1. It is just a simple demonstration. The real structure is much more complex. Both gels were based on polymer with cross link agents and other additives. The function of cross link agents is to make polymer big molecues join together to form a complex strong 3D net work. Without cross link agent, it was not strong enough. Their physical appearances are as Fig. 2 and 3.

Fig.2 Movable gel Movable gel is usually composed of polymer solution and cross link agent. The most common polymers used are polyacrylamide and xanthan. Cross link agents are heavy metal cations and some special organic substances. Its strength can be controlled by its composition. The polymer concentration is from 20020,000 mg/L. Its viscosity can be from several hundreds to more than ten thousands. The example here was formed with polymer concentration of 2000 mg/L. This picture was take in a dark back ground. The white image is formed by the gel. Its viscosity was more than 10000 mPa.s. It can be seen that after reaction, it is not solution but an elastic substance. That means after gelation reaction, polymer molecues combine together and cover water inside in 3D new work structure.

Fig.3 Unmovable Gel Unmovable gel was formed by monomer reacting with cross link agent together at reservoir condision. Polymerisation and cross link reaction take place at the same time. All chemicals were mixed together with water. Because all chemicals are small molecular substances, the solutions viscosity was as

Fig. 1 schematic structure of polymer gel

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SPE 87045

low as water. It is easy to be injected into reservoir and flow in the same way as water. After reaction, it becomes unmovable elastic gel, which is strong enough to shut off big channels. Such gel can form 3D new work with sand in pores. Here shows the example prepared in the tubes. Before the reaction, the solution looked just like water. After put into thermobath for 4 hours, polymerization reaction took place. The solution became elastic gel. Even the magnetic stir rode was sticked inside the gel. Treatment Operation As mentioned above, this treatment technology also consisited well selection and operation. Not every well had big channels or very high permeability zones around it. To select the wells, pressure data, production data and other log data had been used. The test site was chosen from Gudao oilfield near the outlet of Yellow river. It is obvious to find problem production wells, and water shut off were used on producers and still keep using5,6. But it has more risk and efficiency is not as high as treatment from injection wells. So treatment technique on injection was developed. Test Site. The test area is about 1200-1500 meters deep, loose sand deposit. Permeability is around 1200 m2 in average and porosity is around 25% in average. It was developed with water flooding. Because of high water cut of 85-90%, the oil recovery was very low. Some areas were changed to polymer flooding. Because of heterogeneous, with polymer flooding, water cut of some producers were still very high. Even polymer solution was produce with high concentration of nearly 70% of injected concentration. In order to keep these wells in operation, well teatment technology was developed and applied. Treatment Operation. Because the injection pipe line is quite long, the operation was conducted on the well head instead of injection station. Chemicals were prepared as concentrated solution and transported to the well locations. On location, the solution was diluted as designed. Movable pumps (trunks) were used for injection. Injection pressure was controlled 20% lower than broken pressure. For each well, around 100300 m3 solution was used. After injection, wells were closed 48 hours for reaction. Then wells were reopen for injection. Data from both injections and producers were taken for analysis.

Well Parameters. Following wells were selected for test: Table 1 Well parameters
No Well Material used (m3) 10%HS-2:200 5%PFC:80 10%HS-2:300 5%PFC:60 10%HS-2:250 5%PFC:80 10%HS-2:300 5%PFC:60 Gel 500 Gel 500 5%PFC:60 10%HS-2:100 5%PFC:60 10%HS-2:100 5%PFC:60 10%HS-2:130 5%PFC:40 10%HS-2:100 5%PFC:60 10%HS-2:100 5%PFC:60 10%HS-2:200 5%PFC:60 10%HS-2:150 5%PFC:60 Pressure before and after Operation (Mpa) 4.2/7.2 4.0/8.2 5.2/8.4 3.5/9.1 7.210 6.0/11 6.2/11 2.5/9.0 5.8/11..5 6.0/8.5 5.2/9.4 6.5/8.1 7.2/8.4 6.5/8.5 Water Index before and after Operation

1 2 3 4 5 6

X3111 X4181 X2192 X3191 27-2 24N22 20-8 X7-14 X5XN 171 19715

190/85 136/45 168/90 148/73 160/80 120/50 156/80 131/79 160/50 64/30 150/43 108/32 142/49 120/60

7 8 9 10 11 12
13

13N20 9-816 12N13 13816

14

These wells were injection wells. Some related with one producer, some related with multi-producers. For treatment, some used solid particles (HS-2) +strong gel (PFC), some just used movable gel (Gel). There average fluid used was 332.5 m3. The treatment radiuses were from 510 meters. The treatment was around well hole. Test Result From the result in table 1, it can be seen that water index decreased greatly and injection pressure increased after treatment. That means permeability was decreased and big channels were shut off. Water could not flow along the old way and changed direction to other areas. These 14 injection wells corresponded to 48 producers. Among them, 29 were effective with increase in oil production, 14 non-effective and 5 were closed. That means 2/3 producers were effective. For polymer flooding wells, after treatment, the polymer concentration from produced liquid decrease 300 mg/L in average. Typical injection pressure change is shown in Fig. 4

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SPE 87045

8.2 8.0 7.8 7.6 7.4 7.2 7.0 6.8 6.6 6.4 0 2 4 6 8 10 12

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

Oil Liquid

Pressure (MPa)

Production (m3/d)

Shut Off Operation

Operation

Time (Month)

Time (Month)

Fig. 4 Typical Injection Pressure The pressure 3 months before operation was taken as reference. The injection rate before operation was 155 m3/d in average and after was nearly the same , 151 m3/d in average. Such increase of pressure was contributed by the decrease in average permeability. Higher permeability zones were modified and big channels were shut off by this treatment. Fig. 5 is water cut curve after operation.

Fig. 6 Liquid and Oil Production

For most of other producers, similar positive results were obtained. The whole pilot test got the increase of 340,00 tone of oil. Economic Benefit For this pilot test, the benefit was from the oil produced and subtracted the investment of materials and operation cost etc. For the whole test, solid particle HS-2 was 180 tones with price of 400 $/t. Water shut material PFC was 130 t, with price of 400$/t Cross link agent was 10 t, with price of 400$/t Operation cost: 108 $/t Research: 96,380 $ These are: Material: 204,300 $ Operation: 34,560 $ Research: 96,380 $ Total cost: 335,240 $ Output:

90 80 70 60

Water Cut (%)

50 40 30 20 10 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

Operation

Time (Month)

Oil increased 34,000t with price of 150.6 $ and cost of 53.37 $/t. Output: oil* (Price-cost)=3,305,830 $ Input : Output + 1:9.86 The pure benefit was around 3 million $.

Fig. 5 Water cut It can be seen that after operation, water cut was reduced up to 20%. The operation made flooding fluid changed its direction to high oil saturation areas and more oil was driven out. Because of pressure redistribution, total liquid amount was reduced with increase in oil production from 10 to 15 tones per day per well in average (Fig 6).

This was much better than other IOR/EOR methods. From this pilot test, it can be seen clearly that injection well treatment is very important. It can not only increase oil production, but also be beneficial. When it combines with other IOR methods, more efficiency can be obtained.

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SPE 87045

Conclusion For mature water flooding oilfield, injection well treatment is still an important measurement to increase oil recovery. Different gels have been developed to achieve this purpose. Pilot test shows the with proper operation, great success can be obtained with increase in oil recovery and economic benefit. References 1. Donaldson, E. C. et al: Enhance Oil Recovery, Elseveir, Amsterdam, 1985 2. Wang, Z. et al: New IOR Technology, Petroleum Industry Press, Beijing, 1998 3. Betty, J., : Selecte U.S. Department of Energys EOR Technology Application, SPE 84904 4. Mahmoud A/Fotuh, SPE 62891, Factors That Affect the Success of Mechanical Water Shut-off in Wells 2000 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Dallas, Texas, 1-4 October 2000. 5. Morgan J., et al, Development and Deployment of a "Bullheadable" Chemical System for Selective Water Shut off leaving Oil/Gas Production Unharmed presentation of 10th Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference 13-16 October 2002. 6. Fulleylove, R.J et al, Water Shut-off in Oil Production Wells - Lessons from 12 Treatments SPE 36211, Presentation of 7th Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference held in Abu Dhabi, U.A.E., 13-16 October 1996.

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