Water Injection Efficiency Analysis

Presented By:

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India’s

Water Injection
Energy
Anchor

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India’s

Terminology
Energy
Anchor

 Reservoir – Heart of a Petroleum System

 Pressure – Pulse of this Heart
 Why Injection?
 Maintain Reservoir Pressure – Water Injection
 Increase Reservoir Pressure – Water Flooding
 Supplement Natural Water Influx – Water
Drive

We want More OIL after

this!!

(Fig - Characteristics of Various Driving Mechanisms (Satter,

A. and G.C. Thakur))

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India’s

Waterflooding ‘Recovery’ Potential

Energy
Anchor

 Should recover an additional 10% to 40% of the reservoir

OOIP
 A term commonly used is the “Secondary to Primary Ratio”
(S/P)
 Primary is the expected ultimate primary oil recovery
 Secondary is the incremental waterflood recovery
 S/P ratio of 1+ is generally expected

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India’s

Types of Reservoir favourable for Waterflood

Energy
Anchor

 Shallower is better  Higher permeability is better

 Cheaper drilling and operating costs
 Typically lower primary recovery
 Structure
 Gravity plays predominant role in
anticlinal bed
 Horizontal beds can have an early
break through
 Degree of Homogeneity
 Homogeneous reservoirs control
multiple break through
 Reservoir Continuity
 Process the waterflood faster
 May utilize wider well spacing (cheaper)
 Can inject large volume of water
 Low energy Oil (low Bo)
 Lower primary oil recovery
 Lower gas saturation
 Oil Viscosity
 Recovery increases with decrease in oil
viscosity
 High movable oil saturation

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India’s

Factors Affecting Waterflood Success

Energy
Anchor

 Timing of flood – earlier is better

 Higher primary depletion (lower pressure) increases gas saturation
 High gas saturation decreases oil recovery
 Well spacing
 Tighter well spacing is better
 Increases Ea and El
 Accelerates waterflood recovery
 Pattern selection
 Balanced patterns improve Ea

ONGC6
India’s

Reservoir Engineering Aspects of Waterflooding

Energy
Anchor

Efficiency
Macroscopic Microscopic

Vertical Volumetric
Areal Sweep Pore Scale
Sweep Sweep

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India’s

Basics
Energy
Anchor

Darcy’s Law
 Mobility Ratio
𝑘𝐴∆𝑝
𝑞=
𝜇∆𝐿

𝑘𝑤 𝜇𝑜
𝑀 =
𝑘𝑜 𝜇𝑤

Notes:
 Permeabilities are effective permeabilities and 𝑘𝑤 is @ water contacted
portion of reservoir while 𝑘�𝑜 is @ Oil bank. Thus, two values are at
different points in the reservoir.
 M should be less than one for stable frontal displacement

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India’s

Areal Sweep Efficiency (𝐸𝐴 )

Energy
Anchor

Producer
• Pressure gradient is highest for this streamline
• At breakthrough, only a portion of a reservoir
area is contacted, which is Areal Sweep
Efficiency (𝐸𝐴 )
• Various physical models have been developed
to calculate 𝐸𝐴
• 𝑀 < 1, it converges for different physical
models developed for study (REF indicates
different models) Injector
• Different analytical methods:
• Craig’s method
• Rapport’s method
• Prat’s Method
• Factors affecting 𝐸𝐴
• Directional permeability
• Formation Dip
• Off Pattern wells – Reality !
• Vertical and Hz fractures
(Fig. - Areal Sweep Efficiency at Breakthrough)

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India’s

Vertical Sweep Efficiency (𝐸𝑙 )

Energy
Anchor

 Something that give rise to irregular front due to non uniform

permeability in vertical direction.
 Measure of uniformity of water invasion- 𝐸𝑙 OR Invasion Efficiency

𝐶𝑆 𝐴𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑖𝑑

𝐸𝑙 =
𝐶𝑆 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑏𝑒ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑖𝑑 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑡

Affected by:
• Permeability variation in vertical dimension
• Adverse Mobility Ratio
• Gravity forces – “Water Prefers bottom”!

Swept Unswept

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India’s
Energy
Anchor Volumetric Sweep Efficiency (𝐸𝑣 ) &
Microscopic Displacement Efficiency (𝐸𝐷 )

 𝐸𝑣 - Volumetric Sweep Efficiency - 3 dimensional effect of reservoir

heterogeneity

𝑃𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝐹𝑙𝑢𝑖𝑑

𝐸𝑣 = 𝐸𝐴 𝐸𝑙 =
𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑃𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑅𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑜𝑖𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝐼𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡

 𝐸𝐷 - It is defined as fraction of movable oil that has been recovered from

the swept zone at any given time.

𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑂𝑖𝑙 𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑑 − 𝑅𝑒𝑚𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑖𝑙 𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒

𝐸𝐷 =
𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑂𝑖𝑙 𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑑
𝑆𝑤 −𝑆𝑤𝑖 −𝑆𝑔𝑖
=
1−𝑆𝑤𝑖 −𝑆𝑔𝑖

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India’s

Recovery Factor (𝑅𝐹)

Energy
Anchor

𝑅𝐹 = 𝐸𝑣 × 𝐸𝐷 = 𝐸𝐴 𝐸𝑙 × 𝐸𝐷

EA = f (Mobility Ratio, Pattern, Directional Permeability,

Pressure Distribution, Cumulative Injection &
Operations)
El = f (Rock Property variation between different flow
units, Cross-flow, Mobility Ratio)
EV = Volumetric Sweep of the Reservoir by Injected Water
ED = f (Primary Depletion, So, So, Krw & Kro, μo & μw)

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