SPE 138918

Innovative Methodology to Revitalize a Heavy-Oil Mature Field by Identifying

Opportunities to Apply New Cycles of Steam Injection
J.P. Uribe and J.F. Pinilla, Odebrecht O&G, and D. Cabrera, PDVSA

Copyright 2010, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Latin American & Caribbean Petroleum Engineering Conference held in Lima, Peru, 13 December 2010.
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
Tia Juana is a giant heavy oil field located along the Eastern shore of the Maracaibo Basin in Venezuela. This mature field has
been producing oil of 12.6 API from eight unconsolidated reservoirs from Miocene sandstone formations at 1200ft depth since
1928. The OOIP is 11.48MMMBBls with 3.18MMBBls of official recoverable reserves and cumulative production of
1.93MMBBls. This mature field has a long and rich history on which different recovery technologies have been proved such as:
Cycle Steam Injection, Steam Drive, In Situ Combustion and SAGD: However, Cycle Steam Injection is by far, the most costefficient method to produce such heavy oil reservoirs.
High operating expenses affected by relative low production rates are usually exhibited by mature fields, heavy oil projects are
additionally affected by the decreased price associated to oil quality. Under these conditions, an innovative methodology for
economic value-adding opportunities to fields such as Tia Juana, is imperative in order to assure economic equilibrium for the
project.
This paper presents an innovative methodology to boost the productivity scenario of mature heavy oil projects by the identification
of opportunities to recover reserves, development of additional steam cycles in existing and new wells. The presented
methodology is capable of quickly identifying wells with potential to be steam stimulated, quantity of possible cycles possible and
predicted cumulative oil per cycle. This analysis was performed based on 2700 wells on which more than 9000 cycles and 43MM
Tons of steam were injected.
The methodology includes six basics steps: production history review, conventional decline analysis, volumetric reserves
estimation, determination of the well drainage radius and wells interference analysis, EUR calculations and the establishment of a
correlation to predict the well behavior related to the Cycle Steam Injection. All these steps were integrated by an automated tool
designed to manage the huge quantity of information in short time, honoring the cost and the efficiency issues. The application of
this methodology allowed identifying the recovery of 108MMBBls by performing 2409 Steam Cycles in 563 existing wells (Fig.
7), and 113MMBBls by executing 3116 cycles on 576 new wells and finally allowed to adequately rank the opportunities based on
the potential of reserves identified.
Introduction
Tia Juana field is located on the northeast shore of Maracaibo Lake in western Venezuela (Fig. 1), this field has a production
history of more than 70 years, period within which more than 3200 wells have been drilled in an area of around 160 km2.
Many innovative techniques and thermal enhance oil recovery (EOR) methods have been tested on Tia Juana field in order to
increase the recovery efficiency. The attractive technical framework that the field offers, has allowed the application of techniques
such as wet combustion in the late 60s, Steam Drive in 1974 (M-6 project) (F. Puig, 1984), steam assisted gravity drainage

SPE 138918

(SAGD) (R. Butler, 1999) and horizontal-well steam stimulation at the end of the 90s (H. Mendoza, 1998) . However, cyclic steam
stimulation (CSS) was the massively applied process in Tia Juana Field (E. Lopez, 1999).
The nature of the project and the time frame to develop and complete it, brought about the need of an alternative exploitation plan
which boosts the heavy oil recovery efficiency of the field, without affecting negatively the economics of the business.
The development and implementation of this innovative methodology allow to the project team the identification of candidate
wells for additional steam cycles in areas where remaining reserves of oil were not previously identified. The implementation of
this methodology, lead to an increase of the recovery factor of one percent by proposing low risk activities of a well-known
method (CSS) with proved effectiveness in the area.

Gulf ofMaracaibo

Maracaibo

Tia Juana

Lake
Maracaibo

Fig. 1 Geographic location.

Background
Cyclic steam stimulation has been the most widely method used in Bolivar cost to increase the oil recovery, although other
methods as SAGD, Steam Drive, in situ combustion have been tested with some success. Cyclic Steam Stimulation becomes most
used method to produce the heavy oil reservoirs because its well known and offers better oil/steam ratio.
Although more than 9000 cycles have been performed in Tia Juana field, there is not a standard methodology for well selection
and production forecast for Cycle Steam Stimulation process. The conventional process used includes a detailed revision of well
production history and steam cycles response, then the forecasting production is performed for each job and finally wells candidate
for steam stimulation were selected after a block by block revision of every well in the field. This is a very time-consuming
activity for the more than 3200 of existing wells.
In our first approach statistical samples of wells with different number of steam cycles were obtained, recent cycles were preferred.
Different behaviors were observed and there was no correlation between well performance and injected steam, cycle number,
cumulative oil, oil rate or net sand. It was observed old wells producing more oil per cycles than new ones, cycles with low or any
production, wells in fifth or fourth cycles producing as well as wells in first cycle, etc. See Fig. 2, 3, and 4.

5000

6.0
5.0

4.0

2000

3.0

1000

2.0

83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99200001 02 03 04 05 06 0708

1.0

1000

500

800

400

600

300

400

200

200

100

83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99200001 02 03 04 05 06 0708

Cumulative Oil ( Mbls )

3000

Cycle

4000

Oil Production Rate ( BOPD )

Steam Injected ( ton )

SPE 138918

DATE

4.0

3.0

2.0

1
1997

98

99

2000

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

08

1.0

250

100

200

80

150

60

100

40

50

20

1997

98

99

2000

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

08

Cumulative Oil ( Mbls )

2000
0

5.0

3000
1000

6.0

4000

Cycle

5000

Oil Production Rate ( BOPD )

Steam Injected ( ton )

Fig. 2 Normal well production performance.

DATE

5.0

4000

4.0

3000
2000
1000
0

3.0
2.0

1.0
2005

06

07

08

Oil Production Rate ( BOPD )

60

0.0

20
16

45

12
30
8
15

Cycle

5000

2005

06

07

08

Cumulative Oil ( Mbls )

Steam Injected ( ton )

Fig. 3 Well with no production response for second steam cycle.

DATE

Fig. 4 First Cycle with poor production performance.

With all that information in mind a new approach was applied to analyze the whole field in an automated tool that permits to select
well candidates, number of cycles per well, reserves estimation and production forecast as describe above.
Methodology
The following methodology was applied to calculate the estimated ultimately recovery (EUR) of oil to be produced by active wells
and new locations proposed to revitalize Tia Juana field.

SPE 138918

Petrophysical data of the field were obtained from previous studies developed in the field, such as Mega Evaluation Ta Juana
Field. However, in many cases, net pay sand values for interesting areas of the field were missing; those values were gotten from
updated isopach maps and up loaded for the project.
The analysis of the most recent producing date (OFM database up dated on July 2008), allowed the team to identify the condition
of each of the existing well in the field, whereas the cross-checking of the information found on OFM database and the results of
the visual inspections made by the facilities team, led to update the condition of the wells list and remove the wells abandoned
from the study.
Other important product of data-base review, was the forecast of the cold heavy oil production by well, based on the accumulate
oil produced and well-by-well decline curve analyses.
The distance between wells in Tia Juana field was also obtained from the producing data-base, allowing the estimation of the
theoretical drain ratio area per well. Incorporating the net pay sand data, the theoretical drain ratio obtained per well and the
petrophysical information of the areas, a theoretical EUR heavy oil per well finally obtained.
When the produced oil (Np) per well is added, considering continuous production of oil without any additional steam cycle, until
the well reaches the economic limit rate (5bbl/d), the cold EUR heavy oil per well is obtained.
In Tia Juana field, wells were drilled following a triangular grid, which made us assume that the drain area per well might be a
hexagon (1) (Fig. 5). Due to the long history of production of the field, the cold EUR oil value of some wells exceeded the
Theoretical EUR, which affects the Theoretical EUR of younger wells, creating an interference area which was taking into account
to calculate the volume of oil to be drained by future steam cycles (2).
The estimation of the interfered area allowed calculating the remaining volume of oil, which could be drained with additional
steam cycles. This volume of oil could be calculated by subtracting the cold EUR and the produced oil (Np) from the Theoretical
EUR oil for the affected well (3).

The remaining volume of oil to be drained might be divided into the number of additional steam cycle for active and non active
wells where reactivation opportunities were found. To split to remaining volume of oil into the number of cycles was developed a
methodology to estimate the volume of drained crude per cycle for each well, according to the percentage of the theoretical EUR
heavy oil produced for that well.

Fig. 5 EUR per well interference.

For easier calculations, the period of production of heavy oil per well after the steam injection to be considered for the study was
normalized to twelve months (1 year). Therefore, the percentage of the theoretical EUR oil produced per cycle is represented by

SPE 138918

Np CYCLE
the following expression EUR . For the same sample of wells, the produced oil (Np) and the theoretical EUR are known values,

EUR Np
Np CYCLE
Vs
EUR
and it was possible to plot EUR
.

P etrleoAc umuladoporC ic los

1.00
0.90
0.80

Npc ic lo/E
UR
Npcycle
/EUR

0.70

1.6344x

y = 0.033e
0.60
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.20
0.10
0.00
1

0.9

0.8

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

NpNormaliz
ado
(EURNp)/EUR
(EURNp)/EUR

Fig. 6 Normalized cumulative oil per cycle vs current well normalized cumulative oil.
From the dispersion of points in figure 6, it was possible to identify an exponential tendency which helped the team to calculate the
volume of oil to be produced in future steam cycle per well, depending on the percentage of EUR which has already produced by
the well.
However, it is not economically profitable to plan additional steam cycles for wells which accumulate produced oil values are
close to the theoretical EUR, hence an economical limit for the produced oil per cycle ( NpCYCLE ) was established. Those wells
where additional steam cycles are not economically profitable will produce with natural declination until they reach the
economical limit rate.

R3
A3

R2
A2

R1
A1

R5
A5

R4
A4

Q2

B6
B5

B3
B2
C2
D2
E2
E1

F5

F3
F2

F1

H2

No Cycles
2 Cycles
6 Cycles
3 Cycles
1 Cycles
5 Cycles
4 Cycles

H1

J5
J4

J3
J2

J1

K3
K2

K1

L3
L2

L1

L6

L4

M3

M8
M7

M6
M5

M4

L9
L8

L7

L5

N4

Fig. 7 Well candidates for Steam Cycles.

N8
N7

N6
N5

K9
K8

K7

K5

0
J1

J8

K6

K4

H1

J9

J7
J6

H9
H8

H6

H4
H3

G1

G8

H7

H5

G9

G7

G5
G4

G3

F1

F8

G6

F9

F7
F6

F4

E1

E8

E6

E9

E7

E5

E3

D8

D6

E4

D1
D9

D7

D5

D3

D1

C7

C5

D4

C9
C8

C6

C4
C3

C1

B8
B7

B4

B1

R6
A6

Q4

O8
O7

O6
P7

SPE 138918

Conclusions
This approach permits a fast evaluation of the whole field giving to the team a concrete list of wells and a quantification of number
of steam cycles per well and its respective potential.
Besides this tool was developed for prediction of well performance after steam cycle stimulation in existing wells it was useful for
determining number of cycles for proposed new wells.
In a detailed studio this tool could be used as a pre-filter for candidates selection as a previous step of the evaluation of the most
profitable wells ranked saving time for the development teams.
A considerable dispersion was observed in the correlation, aspects as steam quality, operational problems, time between cycles,
soak time, through tubing or casing stimulation, use of additives, leaks or facilities conditions were not taken in account in the
calculations because of the huge amount of data. Next step to increase the methodology strength will be the introduction on the
tool the correction for factors mentioned above will.
A total of 563 existing wells were identified as candidates for cycle steam stimulation with a total of 2409 proposed steam cycles,
in the same way 3116 cycles were established necessary for produced 576 new wells to drill. The added potential represents 11%
of the current cumulative oil.
Acknowledgement
The authors wish to thank Petrleos de Venezuela S.A. and Odebrecht Oil & Gas for authorizing the publication of this work.
Nomenclature
EUR = Estimate Ultimate Recovery.
Np = Cumulative Oil Production.
NpCYCLE = One year net production after CSS.
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