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Eor Potential For Dulang Field
Eor Potential For Dulang Field
Introduction
To generate a big number, fields in Malaysia, goes the stage becoming ripe for the primary and or
secondary exhaustion with it bending of oil rates and the rise of water cuts and GOR trend. the
average oil restoration factor for the Production fields is 37%. This means that there is still an
essential amount lay ' the remaining oil in ' which could be regained potentially by the tertiary
restoration or EOR. Carbon dioxide (CO2) the miscible flood has been identified to be most
accessible EOR go for these fields [1 in a procession. However, to optimize completely Oil restoration
of the process, the most effective injection Way must be decided.
The increasing oil price and the burgeoning demand for petroleum products as a source of
energy as well as the limited oil reserves have accelerated the effort to further extend the
production life of reservoirs. Traditional primary recovery methods as well as secondary recovery
techniques can only recover around one third of the Original Oil In Place (OOIP) [2]. Enhanced Oil
Recovery (EOR) has been employed to further extract oil from the reservoir thus increasing the
ultimate recovery in a reservoir with relatively
CO2 flooding can either be miscible or immiscible depending on the Minimum Miscible Pressure
(MMP). Immiscible flooding occurs when the pressure is below the MMP where CO2 does not form
a single phase solution with the hydrocarbons in the reservoir. Miscible flooding on the other hand
forms a single phase solution with the hydrocarbon reservoir when injected and in contact with the
hydrocarbon at a pressure above the MMP.
gradients of pressure and of effects of floating and capillary force between the porous coats in has
the reservoir where vertical permeability exists.
B. WAG
The WAG or Water-Alternate-Gas technique is a combination of two traditional improved
hydrocarbon recovery. techniques; waterflooding and gas injection. Waterflooding and the gas
flooding cycles are alternated with the design parameters being the cycle timing and the ratio of
water to gas. The main objective is to reduce CO2 channeling by filling the highly permeable
channels with water to improve sweep efficiency during CO2 injection. Optimum conditions of oil
displacement by WAG processes are achieved when the velocities of the gas and water are the same
in the reservoir. The optimum WAG design varies from reservoir to reservoir and for a specific
reservoir, it needs to be determined and possibly fine tuned for patterns within the reservoir. In an
experiment on WAG performed by Chevron [5], the WAG ratio was increased from 1:1 to 3:1 and
with each successive increase in the water to gas ratio, the oil recovery factor increased. Some
advantages of the WAG process include higher CO2 utilization, reduced CO2 production and greater
ultimate recovery. Some of the complications faced by WAG are slower oil response, gravity
segregation due to density difference between CO2 and water, interruption by water on the
continuity of the extraction process by the CO2 slug and loss of injectivity.
C. SWAG
SWAG injection involves injecting both water and CO2 simultaneously into the reservoir. The mixing
of CO2 and water in a SWAG injection can be at the downhole or on the surface. Surface mixing
usually occurs at the well, drill site or at the central processing facility (CPF). The objective of this
technique is to reduce capital and operating cost and at the same time, improve the sweep
efficiency of waterflooding and miscible CO2 flooding. This will reduce the impact of viscous
fingering and will result in an improvement in gas handling and oil recovery [6, 7]. SWAG can
improve the profile control relative to WAG injection and continuous injection. SWAG is a means to
reduce the capillary entrapment of oil in small scale reservoir heterogeneity, providing a better
mobility control of gas compared to WAG. However, one of its short-comings is insufficient CO2
availability at the flood front to saturate the oil and reduce its viscosity. Hence a substantial volume
of carbonated water is required to saturate the residual oil and to reduce its viscosity and cause it to
flow. The use of carbonated waterflood has been proposed in low permeability and naturally
fractured reservoirs [7]. Injection of water with dissolved gas may reach and recover oil from places
where it otherwise is trapped.
D. Hybrid WAG
In light of the early favorable single slug injection and the overall higher recovery by the WAG
technique, the hybrid WAG was introduced. In this process, a large fraction of the pore volume of
the CO2 is continuously injected to about 20% to 40% HCPV and the remaining fraction is then
injected using WAG technique at a specific WAG ratio [5]. In a simulation study performed by Rachel
Hindi et al, a lower initial CO2 slug size was preferred [4]. Their findings showed little effects on the
recovery factor when the initial CO2 slug size increased from 10% to 16% HCPV. The lower initial slug
size of 10% was chosen as the optimum injection strategy. The advantages of hybrid processes are
the early production response associated with continuous injection methods, better
injectivity,minimization of water blocking, greater ultimate recovery and higher CO2 utilization as
compared to that for the WAG process
DATA I
Reservoir A averaged parameters
Reservoir Parameters Average Value
Depth 7,830 ft ss
Thickness 128 ft
Porosity 17.50%
Permeability 70 mD
Initial Reservoir Temperature 202 F
Temperature 176 F
Initial Reservoir Pressure 3,420 psi
Oil Gravity 42 API
Oil Viscosity 0.3 cP
Initial Oil Formation Volume Factor 1.55
The reservoir has an estimated Stock Tank Oil in Place (STOIIP) of 92.8 MMstb and the Ultimate
Recovery (UR) is expected to be 62.2 MMstb. To date, cumulative production is about 24% of STOIIP
with a daily production of 4600 stb of oil and water cut stands at 34%. Production in this reservoir
started in 1972 under natural drive and in 1994, it underwent a water injection scheme. There are
V. SIMULATION STUDIES
A. Study 1: Continuous CO2 injection (varying injection
rate) The focus of this study is to analyze the effects of CO2 injection rate on the recovery factor and
to determine the optimum CO2 injection rate for the reservoir. CO2 was injected continuously into
the reservoir. Five cases with different injection rates, 10,000 Mscf/d, 15,000 Mscf/d, 20,000 Mscf/d,
25,000 Mscf/d, 30,000 Mscf/d and 35,000 Mscf/d were simulated.
Two of the highest recovery factors were yielded by injection rates 35,000 Mscf/d and the 30,000
Mscf/d with the recovery factor of 51.6 and 51.4% respectively. Taking the water cut limit to be 0.9
and since the incremental recovery factor between the two injection rates was not very significant,
the injection rate of 30,000 Mscf/d was taken to be the optimum injection rate. It yielded a lower
CO2 as well as water production.
VII. CONCLUSION
- For SWAG, the recovery factor increased with increasing CO2 injection rate and increasing SWAG
ratio. The optimum SWAG injection technique is set at an injectionrate of 15,000 Mscf/d with a
SWAG ratio of 1:1, yielding a recovery factor of 54.38%.
-Comparing all the various optimum CO2 injection modes, SWAG injection with a CO2 injection rate
of 15,000 Mscf/d and SWAG ratio of 1:1 is the most efficient recovery method for reservoir A. This is
because it yields the highest recovery factor of 54.8% and at the same time, water cut that is below
the limit of 0.9 and a relatively low CO2 breakthrough. It is important to note that different
reservoirs require different injection techniques because of the unique reservoir characteristics and
not that any one technique can be applied to any reservoir. Hence it is important to identify the
optimum flooding mode prior to implementing the flood in the actual field