SPE-185037-MS

EOR in Tight Reservoirs, Technical and Economical Feasibility

K. Joslin, S. G. Ghedan, A. M. Abraham, and V. Pathak, Computer Modelling Group

Copyright 2017, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Unconventional Resources Conference held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 15-16 February 2017.

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
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Abstract
Field experience indicates that primary depletion of tight oil formations, using multistage fractured
horizontal wells, commonly recovers only 5 to 10% of OOIP. The impact of various EOR techniques
on recovering additional oil from these formations is still not fully understood. This paper investigates
the applicability of feasible EOR methods and determines their technical and economic success over the
natural depletion process under different well and fracture designs. Additionally, the study investigates the
minimum reservoir permeability required for success.
To achieve the objectives, both black oil and compositional simulation models were generated for a
Western Canadian tight reservoir containing volatile oil. In addition to primary, the EOR recovery processes
that were considered include waterflooding, immiscible-N2 and miscible-CO2 gas flooding. Combinations
of these techniques, coupled with the effects of various well and fracture design parameters were technically
explored, and economically ranked using a comprehensive economic analysis. Furthermore, the optimal
case of each process was subjected to sensitivity on matrix permeability to determine the minimum
permeability at which these methods can be applicable.
In the EOR scenarios evaluated, the highest cumulative oil produced was associated with the closest
well and fracture spacing, and longest fracture half length. With a larger well spacing (in the order of 400
m), the wells were found to be too far apart to offer any benefit from any EOR technique. Additionally,
the capital expenditure of tight-oil projects is high and therefore greatly influences the economic success.
Several scenarios yielded similar NPV values, however, the IRR performances and CAPEX requirements
helped further evaluate and rank the scenarios.
For the reservoir model used, waterflood was found to be uneconomical at the initial permeability levels
investigated (around 0.3 md) and required a minimum permeability threshold (1 mD) to become profitable.
The primary recovery mechanisms in waterflooding are pressure maintenance and areal sweep, which were
more pronounced in the N 2flood. This was the best recovery technique based on NPV. However, the best
recovery technique based on oil recovery was the miscible-CO2 flood. It offered an increase in oil recovery
factor from 11% to 23% over the best natural depletion case, which was a result of increased oil mobility
by dissolution of CO2. At lower permeability values (down to 0.03 mD) immiscible-N2 flood became the
most effective method via pressure maintenance within the drainage area. For even tighter reservoirs (under
0.03mD), natural depletion remained the best option for this reservoir.
2 SPE-185037-MS

This paper provides an elaborate workflow for evaluating and optimizing EOR techniques in tight
oil formations through an integrated modeling approach. It helps to identify the most technically and
economically proficient techniques under different levels of permeability, well spacing and fracture
parameters.

Introduction
Tight oil reservoirs are considered as reservoirs with an average permeability below 1 mD. These are not
necessarily nano-Darcy shale oil reservoirs, but micro-Darcy tight clastics or carbonates. In this study, the
focus has been kept on tight sandstone type of formations, typical of Western Canadian and northern USA
formations like Bakken, Torquay/Three Forks, Cardium and Lower Shaunavon. Over the past decade or so,
drilling of horizontal, multi-staged hydraulically fractured wells has been established as the suitable way
of recovering oil from such reservoirs. However, due to low mobility of the oil and rather quick pressure
interference between the fractures, the depletion of the reservoir is almost confined to the near fracture
space and the initial high production rates will rapidly decrease with time (Ghaderi et. al.,2012). Therefore,
primary recovery remains low; typically confined to 5-15% of original oil in place (OOIP). (Yu et. al., 2014;
Song et. al., 2013; Hoffman, 2012; Christensen et. al., 2001; Cherian et. al., 2012)
At the end of the primary production stage, the remaining oil saturation could be significant, hence
providing a highly potential prospect for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) (Yu et. al., 2014; Ghaderi et. al.,
2012). While the primary recovery process is well studied and documented, not much analysis has been
done in terms of secondary or tertiary recoveries, both in terms of technical success (more oil production)
as well as in terms of economic success (more NPV, IRR, etc.).
In the last few years, there has been some work done on experimenting and simulating various secondary
and tertiary recovery processes in tight oil reservoirs. Injecting surfactant with water has been shown to
improve waterflood performance in the lab (Kathel et. al., 2013), but the field applicability of this concept
is not well known. There are only a few examples of field tests of secondary and tertiary recovery methods
in tight oil reservoirs. A water injection project was done in a Lower Shaunavon Pilot area, but it didn't
result in greater sweep efficiency (Thomas et. al., 2015).
In contrast, gas injection is recognized to be more suitable than water flooding for enhanced oil recovery
due to its lower viscosity and higher injectivity (Yu et. al., 2014). For example, the viscosity of CO2 is
about 10-25% of that of water at pressures higher than 1070 psi and temperatures higher than 31C (Chen
et. al, 2013).
The most commonly used gases for injection include Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Nitrogen (N2), Natural
gas or a mixture of them (Yu et. al., 2014). A methane injection pilot project in the Mississippian Bakken
formation in the Williston Basin has been shown to be promising in terms of oil production (Schmidt and
Sekar, 2014). EOR fluid availability was the main reason behind choosing methane (solution gas) as the
fluid in this project, and an injection/production well ratio of 1/9 was found to be the most economical.
CO2 flooding and cyclic CO2 injection process (huff-n-puff) are two widely used CO2-based EOR
techniques. The applicability of either EOR technique mainly relies on reservoir conditions, reservoir fluids
and formation properties, and the availability of CO2 sources (Wang et. al., 2013). Gas injection is typically
a multiple contact process since it is hard for the injection gas to be miscible with the in-situ oil at the
beginning, especially for the light and medium oil reservoirs (Wang et. al., 2013). One of the advantages
of CO2 miscible injection is that miscibility pressure is significantly lower than the pressure required for
a miscible process with other gases, such as nitrogen, flue gas, or natural gas. This makes CO2 miscible
injection attainable under a broad spectrum of reservoir pressures, and, has been studied in various forms,
such as continuous CO2 injection (Shoaib et. al., 2009; Hawthorne et. al., 2013), CO2 Huff-n-Puff in Bakken
tight oil reservoirs (Yu et. al., 2014) and WAG injection using CO2 as the gas (Ghaderi et. al., 2012).
Technically, these studies show the advantage of using miscible gas injection in terms of oil swelling and
SPE-185037-MS 3

reduced oil viscosity thus assisting in oil recovery. They also point out what might be required in terms
of reservoir properties and well configuration to improve oil recovery in these processes.
While the physical processes associated with each recovery process may be generally understood with
the current research, the formula for field-level success has not been established yet. Consequently, there
are no comprehensive techno-economic analyses of these processes; and methods for identifying the best
recovery process for a given reservoir along with identification of optimal well and fracture configuration
are missing. This paper attempts to provide a workflow for the same.

Workflow
A realistic synthetic model of a tight oil reservoir was used for performing this study. The workflow used
can be broadly classified into the following major phases:
1. Phase-0: Base Reservoir Model Preparation This involved creating an accurate geomodel, correctly
defining the fluid properties (black oil as well as compositional), setting up base values for parameters
such as hydraulic fracture spacing and conductivity, and identifying the possible EOR schemes that
can be applied in the given reservoir.
2. Phase-1: Technical and Economic Analysis This was done to understand the impact of various
operational parameters (such as hydraulic fracture spacing and inter-well spacing) on the overall
performance of the reservoir both in terms of recovery as well as economics, for each of the EOR
schemes.
3. Phase-2: Best Case Identification This step was to identify the best EOR scheme based on the
economic analysis performed in the previous step. Additionally, it was also used to identify the
combinations of operational parameters that provided the best results for each EOR scheme separately.
4. Phase-3: Refined Sensitivity and Screening Study Finally, another sensitivity study was performed
to identify the average matrix permeability and associated operational parameters under which each
of EOR processes may become more economical than primary depletion.

Phase-0: Base reservoir model preparation

i. Reservoir Model. The reservoir simulation model was based on Western Canadian and Northern US
tight oil reservoirs (like Bakken, Torquay/Three Forks, Cardium and Lower Shaunavon) with significant
heterogeneity in the horizontal as well as the vertical direction. The geomodel was prepared using the
Sequential Gaussian Geostatistical Simulation technique. The reservoir had a downward degradation in
terms of quality thus the porosity values were higher in the upper part of the reservoir. In addition, the
depositional sequence was in a SW-NE direction leading to a better rock quality in the SW region of the
reservoir and poorer rock quality in the NE region of the reservoir. The permeability was dependent on
porosity through a poro-perm transform obtained from an analog reservoir. Table 1 shows the average rock
properties in the reservoir model. Figure 1 shows the permeability distribution along with one possible well
location and fracture placement scenario.
4 SPE-185037-MS

Table 1Average Reservoir Properties

Property Average Value

Porosity 0.06

Permeability 0.33 mD

Dykstra Parsons Coefficient 0.27

Water Saturation 0.34

Original Oil in Place (OOIP) 6.8 MMsm3

Areal Extent 4000 m 1500 m

Thickness 35 m ~45 m

Figure 1Permeability distribution

ii. Fluid Modelling. A Western Canadian tight oil fluid was chosen for this study. This fluid was black
oil with a low-to-medium level of volatility. The fluid composition was available and several experiments
were performed in a fluid PVT package to identify properties such as fluid density, GOR, and viscosity at
various pressures.
Based on the fluid behavior, it was decided that a black-oil reservoir simulator can be used for most of
the EOR processes. The black-oil reservoir simulations were compared against the results of compositional
reservoir simulations for some cases to ensure accuracy. However, for the miscible injection cases, it was
decided to use compositional reservoir simulations because using black-oil simulations for this could prove
erroneous, given the physics of the process and the significant amount of medium and heavy components
in the reservoir oil.
Slim-tube experiments were simulated to identify the Minimum Miscibility Pressure (MMP) of CO2 in
the reservoir oil under constant reservoir temperature. Various reservoir fluid properties are listed in Table 2.
SPE-185037-MS 5

Table 2Fluid Data

Property Value

Oil Density 869.5 kg/m3

Viscosity 0.9431 cP

GOR 102.2 m3/m3

Initial Pressure 18195 kPa

Bubble Point 13973 kPa

CO2 miscibility Pressure ~14000 kPa

Reservoir Temperature 60 C

iii. Black Oil vs. Compositional Simulation. If computing resources, data availability, and time were
unlimited, a reservoir engineer would always choose compositional simulation to perform all reservoir
studies as it is a more realistic representation of the reservoir fluid. However, it is not practical in some cases
especially when dealing with hundreds of simulations for large reservoir models. As a result, the simulations
should be simplified whenever there is a justification. In this workflow, the same approach was applied.
Based on the fluid data, it was expected that some of the EOR schemes (such as waterflooding) could be
modeled using a black-oil simulator. However, it is necessary to ensure that the results are not compromised
by making this simplification. As a result, for some of the cases where a black-oil simulation was justified,
compositional simulations were also performed and the results from the two were compared. To do this,
the same fluid composition data was used to create a black-oil description as well as an EoS description of
the fluid by using a PVT package. The comparison between black-oil and compositional simulations for a
primary production scenario is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2Black oil (IMEX) and Compositional (GEM) Simulation Comparison for primary production

As mentioned earlier, only compositional simulation was used for CO2 based miscible injection as only
then can the fluid miscibility be modeled correctly.
iv. Recovery Techniques. In this paper, four recovery schemes were selected and a technical and economic
assessment was performed on each of them to identify the most profitable one. These four techniques were:
6 SPE-185037-MS

Natural depletion where the reservoir would only be operated under primary pressure depletion.

Water Flooding where some of the producers in the reservoir would be converted to water
injectors after 5 years of primary production.
Nitrogen Injection Immiscible gas injection, where some of the producers would be converted
to nitrogen injectors after 5 years of primary production.
CO2 Injection Miscible gas injection, where some of the producers would be converted to CO2
injectors after 5 years of primary production.

Phase-1: Technical and Economic Analysis

A sensitivity study was performed on each recovery technique to identify the effects of operational
parameters. To ensure a consistent comparison, identical injector bottom-hole fluid rate and injector bottom-
hole pressure constraints were applied to all injectors in the three injection schemes. The maximum bottom-
hole pressure was set as 18 MPa for all injectors higher than the MMP of the reservoir fluid with CO2 but
lower than the expected regional fracture gradient.
This study was performed by using an automated sensitivity analysis tool. The various aspects of this
study were:

i. Parameters. Three operational parameters were chosen for sensitivity study. These were:

Well spacing

Hydraulic fracture spacing

Hydraulic fracture half-length

ii. Objective Functions and Economics. For ranking the various scenarios, a comprehensive economic
analysis was performed. The income from the oil and gas production was considered, as was the expenditure
associated with producing the incremental oil. The data for various incomes and expenses associated is
presented in Table 3. The data was based on general industry knowledge as well as the referenced sources.

Table 3Costs and Prices Considered

Parameter Cost

Oil Price $40/bbl

Gas Price $2.5/MSCF

Water Cost $0.75/bbl (EPAC, 2015)

Nitrogen Cost $1/MSCF (Mitariten, 2009)

Carbon Dioxide Cost $2.25/MSCF (Godec, 2014)

Oil lift Cost $10/bbl (EPAC, 2015)

Gas Processing Cost $0.25/MSCF (EPAC, 2015)

Water Handling Cost $0.5/bbl (EPAC, 2015)

Drilling Cost $2000000/well

Completions and Tie in Cost $1500000/well

Total Fracturing Cost See figure below.

Discount rate 10%

SPE-185037-MS 7

The stage-wise hydraulic fracturing costs depends on the half-length of the principal hydraulic
fracture (Schweitzer et. al., 2009) and the amount of proppant pumped (associated to hydraulic fracture
conductivity). The formula for fracture cost was scaled to represent values more typical of the type of
reservoir studied in this paper. The stage costs estimates are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3Hydraulic fracturing stage cost vs fracture half-length

Total Fracturing Cost = Fixed Fracture/well ($1.5 MM) + Number of Stages * [Fixed Stage Cost ($150K)+
Cost/per meter (half length) ($691)*Half Length]
Various technical performance and economic performance indicators were chosen as the objective
function to aid in analyzing simulation results. These were:

Cumulative oil production

Investment Amount representing the capital expenditures (CAPEX)

Cumulative Undiscounted Net Cash Flow

Project Net Present Value (NPV) discounted at a rate of 10%

Project Incremental Rate of Return (IRR) This represents the discount rate that makes the NPV
equal to zero (i.e. the growth rate that project is expected to generate)

Phase-1 Results and Discussion

i. Natural Depletion. The first method evaluated was Natural Depletion and it was used as the basis for
the various other EOR models. A total of 56 simulations were performed and well-spacing, fracture spacing
and fracture half-lengths were used as sensitivity parameters. A combination of an automated sensitivity
analysis tool and manual dataset creation was used to ensure that enough simulations were run to explore
the search space of the parameters. For these primary production cases, the wells mainly operated on a
minimum BHP of 2000 kPa (290 psi) with an initial pressure drawdown constraint of 1000 kPa.
The results for the natural depletion cases are presented in the following section. Figure 4 shows a cross
plot of cumulative oil versus fracture spacing. Figure 5 shows the cross plots of NPV and IRR versus
fracture spacing. These objective functions were identified as the most compelling in terms of technical and
economic success. From the figures, it was observed that the higher cumulative oil was at the closest well
spacing (300 m) and closer fracture spacings (25-50 m), whereas the best NPV cases trended towards the
middle well spacing (400 m) and highest fracture spacings (100-125 m). At the closest well and fracture
spacings, more number of wells and fractures led to a better sweep and a better oil recovery. However, the
8 SPE-185037-MS

increased cost associated with these cases did not translate into sufficiently increased revenue to result in
a greater profit.

Figure 4Natural Depletion: Crossplot (Cumulative Oil Produced vs. Fracture Spacing), colours represent the well spacing.

Figure 5Natural depletion economic performance indicators: (a) NPV vs

Fracture Spacing, (b) IRR vs Fracture Spacing, colours represent the well spacing.

The IRR for these cases showed that the higher well and fracture spacings resulted in a greater return on
investment. The economical indicator IRR is heavily influenced by CAPEX and therefore favours a fewer
number of wells and fractures. A higher IRR translates into a lower risk due to less investment requirements.
Therefore, given two cases with similar NPV, the one with a higher IRR might be the more attractive option.
The same analysis was done for evaluating the impact fracture half-length as well. For cumulative oil,
the cases with the higher half-length resulted in the most production as shown in Figure 6. For the cases
with a larger half-length, the additional production of oil was negated by the additional cost required. This
yielded a very weak trend between the half-length and calculated NPV and IRR.
SPE-185037-MS 9

Figure 6Natural Depletion: Crossplot (Cumulative Oil Produced

vs. Fracture Half Length), colours represent the well spacing.

In summary, it was seen that the technical performance indicator (oil produced) and the economic
performance indicators (IRR and NPV) were affected differently by the same parameters. Overall, it was
seen that the best economic performance can be achieved by using the middle well spacing (400 m) along
with spaced out fractures (100-125 m fracture spacing). The fracture half-length had no impact on economic
performance of depletion and could range from 50-150 m. This conclusion is reiterated in Figure 7, which
shows the cross plot between NPV and cumulative oil produced. It also shows that 400 m well spacing cases
have less variation in NPV for similar ranges of oil production, and thus means less risk.

Figure 7Natural Depletion: Crossplot (NPV vs. Cumulative Oil Produced)

ii. Water Flood. For all of the EOR processes, the recovery methods were implemented after a primary
production period of 5 years the reservoir's oil production rate had significantly reduced by this time. To
implement the enhanced recovery techniques, every alternate well was converted into an injector and the
wells at the end of the flood pattern were left as producers. In addition to a maximum injection pressure of
18000 kPa, a maximum bottom hole fluid rate (BHF) was also applied on injectors. This was done to keep
the comparisons consistent and was based on the maximum BHF observed in the natural depletion cases.
10 SPE-185037-MS

Similar to natural depletion, the case with closest well spacing (300 m) and closer fracture spacings
(25-75 m) resulted in the highest cumulative oil (Figure 8). However, the NPV showed a different trend
when compared to natural depletion. There was little difference in the NPV obtained from 300 m well
spacing versus 400 m well spacing and the waterflooding cases did not necessarily favour the 400 m spacing
case. This is because at low permeabilities, the injection of water is generally ineffective at providing the
necessary sweep over large distances. From an economical stand point, the larger fracture spacings were
superior. This was because the fracture spacing had minimal impact on cumulative oil but the smaller
fracture spacing had a higher cost because of more propped fractures (Figure 8).

Figure 8Water Flooding Crossplots Cumulative oil and NPV versus Fracture Spacing, colours represent well spacing

For the water flood, longer half-lengths were found to be favourable in terms of oil produced, because
inter-well communication needed to be established between the injectors and producers for a flood process
to work. This was seen for all well spacing scenarios (Figure 9). However, a weak trend was seen between the
economic indicators (NPV and IRR) and the fracture half-length. The reason was that in several cases, the
incremental oil produced by having longer fractures was offset by the increased pumping costs of creating
them.

Figure 9Cumulative Oil versus Half-length for waterflooding

SPE-185037-MS 11

A comparison of the natural depletion cases to the waterflood cases shows that for equivalent
configurations, the natural depletion simulations always yielded a higher NPV and with the exception of a
few cases a higher cumulative oil. It can therefore be concluded that at this permeability level waterflooding
is not an effective recovery method.
In field operations, water injection has been shown to have a limited benefit for some oil reservoirs
considered to be tight (Thomas et al, 2014), but these reservoirs have a unique characteristic such as a high
permeability streak or higher average permeability. In order to determine at which levels waterflooding can
become practical, some sensitivities on average matrix permeability were performed for this reservoir and
are described in a later section.
iii. Immiscible Gas (Nitrogen) Flood. The nitrogen injection simulations were performed with the same
operating constraints as the waterflooding ones. The injectors were allowed to inject the maximum amount
of fluid under the operating constraints. This offered a fair comparison when determining which process is
the most effective as each process was allowed to inject its maximum amount of available fluid.
For each of the parameters, the nitrogen injection showed trends similar to that of water flooding in terms
of the impact of each parameter (Figure 10), but the magnitude of that impact was higher. For example,
waterflooding with a profitable well-fracture configuration showed an increase of 13% in oil production
over waterflooding with a different well-fracture configuration. Comparing the same two configurations for
nitrogen injection revealed an increase of 30%.

Figure 10Nitrogen Flooding Cumulative Oil and NPV versus Fracture Spacing, Colours represent well spacing

Apart from a few exceptions for the 300 m and 400 m well spacing, nitrogen injection provided a better
recovery and profitability over natural depletion and water injection. The primary recovery mechanism
for the nitrogen injection was pressure support and areal sweep and it was able to maintain an average
reservoir pressure between 11500-12500 kPa in all cases. By contrast the average pressure in waterflooding
and natural depletion was on the order of 10000 and 5500 kPa, respectively. Nitrogen injection being more
effective than waterflooding could be related to the significantly lower viscosity of nitrogen.
Figure 10 shows that 300 m well spacing combined with a high fracture spacing of 75-125 m and fracture
half-lengths in the wide range of 75-150 m yielded the best results in terms of economic viability of Nitrogen
flood.
iv. Miscible Gas (CO2) Flood. The final method evaluated was a miscible gas flood for which Carbon
dioxide was selected. Unlike the other methods, a fully compositional simulator was used to evaluate this
12 SPE-185037-MS

technique. From a simulated slim-tube experiment the minimum miscibility pressure was identified as 14
MPa, which is 4 MPa below the maximum injection pressure.
The success of CO2 injection was heavily influenced by well spacing, with the closest well spacing (300
m) with spaced out fractures (75-125 m) resulting in both the best oil recovery and net present value (Figure
11). At 300 m and 400 m well spacing the CO2 injection offered an improved recovery when compared to
the nitrogen injection case. The improvement in recovery associated with CO2 injection can be credited to
the CO2 dissolution in the oil, effectively reducing its viscosity and residual oil saturation. In addition to the
miscibility of CO2 contributing to a higher recovery, the gas also provides the necessary pressure support
required to move the flood front from the injectors to the producers. This pressure support, however, is less
effective than the nitrogen injection case. This is because the CO2 is dissolved in the oil contributing less
to the pressure increase, and also has a higher viscosity than nitrogen. This is the reason for CO2 injection
performing better at 300 m well spacing as compared to bigger well spacings.

Figure 11CO2 Flooding Cumulative Oil and NPV versus Fracture Spacing, colours represent well spacing.

Despite the improved recovery observed with the CO2 injection the NPV and IRR are lower. This is
because of the higher cost and higher injection rate associated with CO2. The cost of CO2 used in this study
is 2.25 times larger than that of nitrogen. In reality, the cost of CO2 can vary significantly from one field to
another as it depends heavily on access and availability (Ghaderi, 2013). If CO2 can be obtained at a cheaper
price it could be the more attractive option for recovery.
In some cases, when a smaller half-length was used it resulted in a higher oil recovery, but less NPV.
This could be counter-intuitive because logic dictates that the higher cost of the larger half-length should
result in a smaller NPV, especially if the cumulative oil is less. However, the EOR response is much quicker
in cases where longer fractures lead to better injector-producer connectivity and therefore, breakthrough of
the injected fluid into the producer happens quicker. When breakthrough is fast, the produced CO2 can then
be recycled and its impact on operational expenditures is less. For the shorter half-length cases the sweep
efficiency is slightly better thus contributing to a slight increase in oil recovery (but lower NPV because
of higher CO2 expenses).
Based on the results for each of the processes, well spacing was the most important parameter in terms
of oil recovery while fracture spacing was the most influential parameter for economic analyses. This is
emphasized in the Sobol analyses plots presented in Figure 12.
SPE-185037-MS 13

Figure 12Sobol Analyses of CO2 (a) Cumulative Oil, and (b) NPV

Phase-2: Best Case Identification

Results and Discussion
The following two tables summarize the best cases based on NPV, and Cumulative Oil for each recovery
process and their associated parameters.

Table 4Best cases based on oil recovery factor

Process Fracture Fracture Best Cum. Oil Recovery

Well Spacing
Spacing Half-length Oil (MMm3) Factor

Natural Depletion 300 25 150 0.77 11%

Water Flooding 300 25 150 1.07 16%

Nitrogen Injection 300 25 100 1.14 17%

CO2 EOR 300 25 80 1.53 23%

Table 5Best cases based on NPV

Process Fracture Fracture Best NPV

Well Spacing
Spacing Half-length ($MM)

Natural Depletion 400 125 150 60.33

Water Flooding 400 125 150 52.61

Nitrogen Injection 300 125 120 63.64

CO2 EOR 300 125 120 58.36

The best cases in terms of oil recovery had the closest well spacing and the closest fracture spacing. This
is intuitive as it results in the highest amount of stimulated reservoir volume. However, these cases are not
practical from an economic standpoint as they often result in a very high capital expenditure. Therefore,
the optimal NPV cases required higher fracture and well spacing. However, for CO2 EOR and nitrogen
injection, the optimal NPV cases were still at the closest well spacing of 300 m. This is because most EOR
techniques require communication between the injectors and producers to be successful, which could be
achieved effectively only with the closest well spacing. A case-by-case comparison of the four processes
in terms of cumulative oil production is presented in Figure 13.
14 SPE-185037-MS

Figure 13Comparison of cumulative oil produced during various processes for a 300
m well spacing. Notice that CO2 EOR produces the maximum amount of oil in each case.

To help demonstrate why certain processes are more effective at oil recovery, a plot of oil recovery and
average reservoir pressure versus time for a typical case is presented in Figure 14. In this case the well
spacing was set to 300m, and fracture spacing and half-length were both at 100m. The nitrogen was more
effective in the early stages due to the pressure support it provides and the better injectivity it has compared
to CO2 and water. Overall, the CO2 injection was most the effective at recovering oil because of its ability
to reduce the residual oil saturation and still provide the necessary pressure support.

Figure 14Oil Recovery Factor and Average Reservoir Pressure versus time
SPE-185037-MS 15

However, as indicated earlier, the process or configuration that produces the maximum amount of oil
may not be the most economical one. Thus, NPV would be a better indicator of the economically successful
processes. In almost all the scenarios, Nitrogen injection proved to be the one with the highest NPV, followed
by CO2 EOR. Furthermore, there are many configurations within each process that produced NPVs close to
the optimal case. In such scenarios, the IRR can be used as a secondary economic indicator to see if there is
a case that produced an attractive NPV but at a lower risk. For example, for both CO2 and nitrogen injection
the highest IRR was attainable in the highest well spacing where risk was lowest. In all cases the natural
depletion had the highest internal rate of return, owing to the least amount of investment. Therefore, given
unlimited oil resources, it may be more beneficial to continue to develop green fields with natural depletion,
rather than investing the additional capital in enhanced recovery techniques. A case-by-case comparison of
the four processes in terms of NPV is presented in Figure 15.

Figure 15Comparison of NPV for various processes for a 300 m well spacing.
Notice that Nitrogen injection produces the maximum NPV in each case.

Phase-3: Permeability Sensitivity

The average reservoir permeability is one of the most sensitive parameters when it comes to recovery from
tight reservoirs with hydraulic fractures. The final phase of this study was to perform a sensitivity study on
the average matrix permeability to identify at which average permeability values the recovery methods are
practical and become an attractive alternative to primary production.
Since the recovery processes can be quantified both in terms of economical as well as technical
proficiency, two sensitivities were performed for each of the three injection recovery processes. Global
permeability multipliers in the range of 0.001 to 5.00 were used in each of the best cases identified in
Phase-2. To quantify the benefit of the secondary and tertiary recovery techniques, the equivalent natural
depletion case was also run at the same permeability levels.
16 SPE-185037-MS

The following plots summarize the results of the permeability sensitivity:

Figure 16Results of permeability sensitivity on (a) Incremental Oil using various recovery techniques,
and (b) Incremental NPV using various recovery techniques, with respect to natural depletion

i. Incremental Oil.

When the average permeability was less than about 0.03 mD, none of the enhanced recovery
methods were more effective than natural depletion.
At average permeability in the range of 0.03-0.10 mD, the nitrogen injection yielded the most
promising results. This is because at the lower permeability carbon dioxide and water were
ineffective at moving through the reservoir whereas the lower viscosity of nitrogen allowed it to
maintain a certain degree of pressure support.
At a higher average permeability (> 0.10 mD) the carbon dioxide became the superior option
allowing for the full benefits of a miscible flood.
ii. Incremental NPV.

When comparing the best NPV cases, all EOR processes showed an improved NPV over natural
depletion when the average permeability was above 1 mD.
In the 0.3-1 mD range, only nitrogen and CO2 could out-perform primary recovery. The NPV
response of the gas injection was similar to the incremental oil response, where the immiscible
flood showed greater benefit at lower permeability levels (0.3-0.4 mD) and the miscible flood
showed greater benefit at higher permeability levels (higher than 0.4 mD).
Only Nitrogen injection was profitable in the 0.1-0.3 mD range. It must be noted that in this range
of average permeability, CO2 injection produces more oil, but is less economical because of the
higher costs associated with CO2 (For this study, the cost of CO2 was considered to be more than
twice of that of Nitrogen).
Gas injection EOR processes are contingent on the cost of the gas injected, therefore, a small
change to the gas price could result in one technique being favoured over the other.
When the average permeability was less than 0.1 mD, natural depletion always produced a higher
economic return. In order to generate more oil and more economic benefit from such reservoirs, a
non-flood EOR technique may be better such as a huff n puff cyclic process.
SPE-185037-MS 17

Tight oil reservoirs cover a wide range of permeability values. The sensitivity presented here was a simple
screening test to determine how influential reservoir permeability can be and whether or not more than
one recovery technique can be optimal. This was best observed by looking at the effects on nitrogen
and CO2 injection where each proved to be the ideal case depending on the permeability. Despite these
conclusions, there are also many other reservoir parameters that can influence recovery that were not
explored here including level of heterogeneity (Dykstra-Parsons), capillary pressure, relative permeabilities,
water saturation and the fluid properties.

Conclusions
A workflow was presented in order to evaluate different recovery processes for a simulation model
representative of a Western Canadian tight oil formation. Of the process examined, both nitrogen flooding
and CO2 EOR were shown to increase the recovery over that of natural depletion. Waterflooding, on the
other hand, proved to be detrimental in majority of the cases.
The processes were examined under different well and fracture configurations in order to identify the most
impacting parameters and the most optimal combinations of these parameters. Well spacing was identified
as the most influential parameter and for all processes the closest well spacing (300 m) offered the greatest
recovery. This remained true for CO2 EOR and nitrogen injection, even when quantifying the results from
an economical standpoint due to the reliance of these processes on inter-well communication. Fracture
spacing was the next most influential parameter where lower fracture spacings heavily hampered the capital
expenditures resulting in low economic return.
Using oil recovery factor as the benchmark, the optimal case stemmed from the CO 2EOR which produced
twice as much oil as the best natural depletion case. Economically, however, the cost of CO2 injection was
too great conceding to nitrogen flooding as the most optimum with a top NPV of $64 MM. Nitrogen injection
also offered a lower risk than CO2 with the IRR greater than 40% in many 300 m well spacing scenarios.
A final sensitivity was done on matrix permeability, which showed that enhanced recovery methods
yielded benefits over primary recovery when the average permeability is greater 0.03 mD for oil recovery
and 0.1 mD for NPV. The immiscible gas flood was favoured at lower permeability whereas the miscible
gas flood showed greater benefit at higher average permeability. A more comprehensive study including
parameters other than just matrix permeability will help to solidify these conclusions.
Under primary recovery alone, the majority of tight reservoirs can only recover between 5 and 10% of the
original oil in place. This paper successfully evaluates three potential processes under a variety of conditions
which could be used to improve this recovery. The workflow and results presented here can be applied as
screening criteria to be used when attempting to expand a reservoir's production.

Acknowledgements
The authors thank Computer Modelling Group Ltd. for providing resources to complete this study and
permission to publish it. The authors would also like to thank Anjani Kumar, Alex Novlesky, Jim Erdle,
and Kanhaiyalal Patel for their suggestions on the paper.

Nomenclature
BHF : Bottom-hole Fluid Rate
BHP : Bottom-hole Pressure
CAPEX : Capital Expenditure
EOR : Enhanced Oil Recovery
EoS : Equation-of-State
IRR : Incremental Rate of Return
MMP : Minimum Miscibility Pressure
18 SPE-185037-MS

NPV : Net Present Value

PVT : Pressure-Volume-Temperature

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