SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
Volume 12, Number 6, December 2009, pp. 841-852

SPE-116989-PA

Short-Term and Long-Term Aspects of a Water Injection Strategy

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DOI  More information 10.2118/116989-PA http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/116989-PA

Citation

  • Stenger, B.A., Al-Katheeri, A.B., Hafez, H.H., and Al-Kendi, S.A. 2009. Short-Term and Long-Term Aspects of a Water Injection Strategy. SPE Res Eval & Eng  12 (6): 841-852. SPE-116989-PA. doi: 10.2118/116989-PA.

Discipline Categories

  • 6.4 Primary and Enhanced Recovery Processes
  • 6.4.1 Waterflooding
  • 6.5 Reservoir Simulation

Summary

This paper reviewed the water injection strategy of a supergiant carbonate oil field onshore Abu Dhabi operated by ADCO since 1973. This field was subjected to peripheral waterflooding in order to maintain reservoir pressure and provide a mechanism to sweep the oil. In addition to traditional parameters in waterflooding that control the waterfront shape, such as reservoir heterogeneity, mobility ratio, and depletion rate, the presence of three oil-bearing reservoirs juxtaposed across strike/slip fault planes added a new variable to the complexity. Fault juxtaposition was interpreted to create limited pressure communication and fluid crossflow between reservoirs. The usual way of computing the voidage-replacement ratio (VRR) on the basis of well production and injection rates was, therefore, insufficient to gain a complete understanding of the water-injection strategy. Two different solutions of the VRR were calculated using a full-field reservoir-simulation model history matched for both pressure and saturation changes. After accounting for all surface facilities constraints and under a certain set of assumptions, results of this model indicated that the cumulative liquid crossflow was minimized when certain pressure differences were maintained between these three reservoirs. Alternatively, there were indications that specific instances of higher liquid crossflow could result in additional oil recovery. A simple method to manage production and water-injection targets on a quarterly basis while accounting for the communication between reservoirs was also presented.

© 2009. Society of Petroleum Engineers

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History

  • Original manuscript received: 22 July 2008
  • Meeting paper published: 3 November 2008
  • Revised manuscript received: 14 January 2009
  • Manuscript approved: 24 January 2009
  • Published online: 17 November 2009
  • Version of record: 31 December 2009