Title number: 3

Name: k.Balaji ravi teja reddy

Roll Number: R270307014

C.G.P.A: 2.89
Title: water for water flooding

Name: K.Balaji Ravi Teja Reddy

Abstract:
The lack of sufficient natural drive in most reservoirs has led to the practice of supplementing the natural reservoir
energy by introducing some form of artificial drive. Water flooding is utilized primarily as a secondary recovery
technique, where the primary drive mechanism used to produce the oil (dissolved gas) is depleted. Water is
recovered from the water table and injected into the reservoir, displacing the oil towards the target production wells.
water is an effective fluid for maintaining reservoir pressure and driving oil towards a producer. Thus, it is the
dominant secondary recovery technique. However, when the water saturation increases, oil is trapped as capillary
forces cause the water to collect at pore throats. Thus, the water blocks movement of oil. Production declines as
more oil becomes trapped. The most method being the injection of water it is used as secondary recovery.
Introduction:

Waterflooding – the injection of water into an oil reservoir to recover more petroleum from it – is a common oil
industrypractice. Secondary or enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods are needed because only a small fraction of
the oil in a reservoircan be produced by primary means (the reservoir’s naturaldrives). Initial recovery ranges from
only about 5 per centup to about 20 per cent.These methods must,naturally, also be both economic and
effectiveWhere does the water come from?A common misconception is that oil companies use valuable surface
waterand, by injecting it into an oil formation, render it dirty and salty. While alimited number of projects do use
some surface water, thosepractices are disappearing. Most projects use water from anunderground aquifer that is
similar to the oil formation’snative water, usually quite salty and not suitable for human oranimal
consumption.Virtually all of the injected water is produced with the oil.The two fluids are separated on the surface,
the oil contentremaining in the water is removed, and then the water isreinjected. So in fact most of the water gets
repeatedly recycled –only a small amount of ‘new’ water, roughly equal to the amount of oil produced, is required
on a daily basis. Whileother EOR technologies will certainly recover more of the oilfrom a given reservoir, the
economics may not be that favorableto their application in the province. The science behind water-flooding must be
advanced to sustain the oil industry.Work is already underway to improve waterfloodingtechnology and also to
extend its application to heavy (moreviscous) crudes, once thought imprac-tical. One method involves the addition
of a small amount of soap-like chemicals to the water – this helps to free the oil attached to the reservoirrock Oil
producers and researchers are working hard to find the best waterfloodingpractices to increase recovery and
toachievequickersuccess.
TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW

Since waterfloods are typically implemented inmature developed properties, it might be assumedthat the reservoir is
well defined, with few potentialsurprises. Experience indicates otherwise. However,operators who are aware of
common pitfalls can avoidmistakes that will reduce recovery and profitabilitywhen implementing waterfloods.

The growth of a waterflood prospect, from conceptionto abandonment, is divided into two stages. The
firststage,which is the topic of this workshop, deals withthe initial analysis up to the development of thereservoir
model. It is especially critical that engineersand geologists work together during this initial con-ceptual stage. The
second stage, which is more engineering- oriented, deals with development of thereservoir model, implementation,
and operation untilproject abandonment.
Typically, an operator’s first step in evaluating awaterflood candidate should be to assemble and evaluate
preliminary reservoir data. Information about the gas:oil ratio (GOR) and water production provide key Wells with
a GOR less than 3000/1 are generallyattractive candidates. Gas reservoirs do not make favorable waterflood
candidates because of the lack of sufficient oil to bank. The operator should, however,be aware that a well’s high
GOR can be caused bycomingling of fluids from different stratigraphic layers. Detailed stratigraphic correlation
should be ableto distinguish the types of fluids coming from various zones.

Factors to consider in water flooding

Thomas Mahoney &winter (1989) pointed out that in determining the suitability of a candidate reservoir for water
flooding the folling reservoir characteristics must be considered
• Reservoir geometry
• Fluid properties
• Reservoir depth
• Lithology and rock properties
• Fluid saturations

Reservoir Geometry

The areal geometry of the reservoir will influence the location of wells and, if offshore, will influence the location
and number of platforms required. The reservoir’s geometry will essentially dictate the methods by which a
reservoir can be produced through water-injection practices
Fluid Properties

The physical properties of the reservoir fluids have pronounced effects on the suitability of a given reservoir for
further development by waterflooding. The viscosity of the crude oil is considered the most important fluid property
that affects the degree of success of a waterflooding project. The oil viscosity has the important effect of
determining the mobility ratio that, in turn, controls the sweep efficiency.

Reservoir Depth

Reservoir depth has an important influence on both the technical and economic aspects of a secondary or tertiary
recovery project. Maximum injection pressure will increase with.depth. The costs of lifting oil from very deep wells
will limit the maximum economic water–oil ratios that can be tolerated, thereby reducing the ultimate recovery
factor andincreasing the total project operating costs.
Reservoir Uniformity and Pay Continuity

Substantial reservoir uniformity is one of the major physical criterions for successful waterflooding. For example, if
the formation contains astratum of limited thickness with a very high permeability (i.e.thiefzone), rapid channeling
and bypassing will develop. Unless this zone canbe located and shut off, the producing water–oil ratios will soon
become too high for the flooding operation to be considered profitable.The lower depletion pressure that may exist
in the highly permeable zones will also aggravate the water-channeling tendency due to the high-permeability
variations. Moreover, these thief zones will contain lessresidual oil than the other layers, and their flooding will lead
to relatively lower oil recoveries than other layers.

Areal continuity of the pay zone is also a prerequisite for a successfulwaterflooding project. Isolated lenses may be
effectively depleted by a single well completion, but a flood mechanism requires that both the injector and producer
be present in the lens. Breaks in pay continuity and reservoir anisotropy caused by depositional conditions, fractures,
or faulting need to be identified and described before determining the prop-er well spanning and the suitable flood
pattern orientation.

SELECTION OF FLOODING PATTERNS

One of the first steps in designing a waterflooding project is floodpattern selection. The objective is to select the
proper pattern that will provide the injection fluid with the maximum possible contact with the crude oil system.
This selection can be achieved by
(1) converting existing production wells into injectors
(2) drilling infill injection wells. When making the selection, the following factors must be
considered:

• Reservoir heterogeneity and directional permeability

• Direction of formation fractures
• Availability of the injection fluid (gas or water)
• Desired and anticipated flood life
• Maximum oil recovery
• Well spacing, productivity, and injectivity
OPTIMUM TIME TO WATERFLOOD
The most common procedure for determining the optimum time to start waterflooding is to calculate:
• Anticipated oil recovery
• Fluid production rates
• Monetary investment
• Availability and quality of the water supply
• Costs of water treatment and pumping equipment
• Costs of maintenance and operation of the water installation facilities
• Costs of drilling new injection wells or converting existing production wells into injectors
The following factors as being important when determining the reservoir pressure (or time) to initiate a secondary
recovery project.
• Reservoir oil viscosity Water injection should be initiated when the reservoir pressure reaches its bubble-point
pressure since the oil viscosity reaches its minimum value at this pressure. The mobility of the oil will increase with
decreasing oil viscosity, which in turns improves
the sweeping efficiency.
• Free gas saturation.
(1) In water injection projects.
It is desirable tohave initial gas saturation, possibly as much as 10%. This will occur at a pressure
that is below the bubble point pressure.
(2) In gas injectionprojects.
Zero gas saturation in the oil zone is desired. This occurs while reservoir pressure is at or above
bubble-point pressure.
• Cost of injection equipment. This is related to reservoir pressure, and at higher pressures, the cost of
injection equipment increases. Therefore, a low reservoir pressure at initiation of injection is desirable.
• Productivity of producing wells. A high reservoir pressure is desirable to increase the productivity of producing
wells, which prolongs the flowing period of the wells, decreases lifting costs, and may shorten the overall life of the
project.
• Effect of delaying investment on the time value of money. A delayed investment in injection facilities is
desirable from this standpoint.
• Overall life of the reservoir. Because operating expenses are an important part of total costs, the fluid injection
process should be started asearly as possible.

EFFECT OF TRAPPED GAS ON WATERFLOOD RECOVERY

The theory of this phenomenon of improving overall oil recoverywhen initial gas exists at the start of the flood is not
well established;however, Cole (1969) proposed the following two different theories that perhaps provide insight to
this phenomenon.

First Theory
Cole (1969) postulates that since the interfacial tension of a gas–oil system is less than the interfacial tension of
a gas–water system, in a three-phase system containing gas, water, and oil, the reservoir fluids will tend to
arrange themselves in a minimum energy relationship.

case, this would dictate that the gas molecules enclose themselves in an oil “blanket.” This increases the effective
size of any oil globules, which have enclosed some gas. When the oil is displaced by water, the oil globules are
reduced to some size dictated by the flow mechanics. If a gas bubble existed on the inside of the oil globule, the
amount of residual oil left in the reservoir would be reduced by the size of the gas bubble within the oil globule. As
illustrated in the external diameters of the residual oil globules are the same in both views. However, in view b, the
center of the residual oil globule is not oil, but gas. Therefore, in view , the actual residual oil saturation is reduced
by the size of the gas bubble within the oil globule.
.

Second Theory

Cole (1969) points out that reports on other laboratory experiments have noted the increased recovery obtained by
flooding cores with air after waterflooding. These cores were classified as water-wet at the time the laboratory
experiments were conducted. On the basis of these experiments, it was postulated that the residual oil saturation was
located in the larger pore spaces, since the water would be preferentially pulled into the smaller pore spaces by
capillary action in the water-wet sandstone. At a later time, when air was flooded through the core, it moved
preferentially through the larger pore spaces since it was nonwetting. However, in passing through these large pore
spaces, the air displaced some of the residualoil left by water displacement.This latter theory is more nearly
compatible with fluid flow observations, because the gas saturation does not have to exist inside the oilphase. If this
theory were correct, the increased recovery due to thepresence of free gas saturation could be explained quite simply
forwater-wet porous media. As the gas saturation formed, it displaced oilfrom the larger pore spaces, because it is
more nonwetting to the reser-voir rock than the oil. Then, as water displaced the oil from the reservoir
rock, the amount of residual oil left in the larger pore spaces would bereduced because of occupancy of a portion of
this space by gas.

The injection into a solution gas-drive reservoir usually occurs at injectionrates that cause repressurization of the
reservoir. If pressure is high enough,the trapped gas will dissolve in the oil with no effect on subsequent residualoil
saturations. It is of interest to estimate what pressure increases would berequired in order to dissolve the trapped gas
in the oil system. The pressure isessentially defined as the “new” bubble-point pressure (Pbnew). As the pressure
increases to the new bubble-point pressure, the trapped gas will dissolvein the oil phase with a subsequent increase
in the gas solubility from RstoRnews. As illustrated in Figure 14-7, the new gas solubility can be estimated asthe sum
of the volumes of the dissolved gas and the trapped gas in the reservoir divided by the volume of stock-tank oil in
the reservoir, or:
Practical application

• The peripheral flood generally yields a maximum oil recovery with a minimum of produced water.
• The production of significant quantities of water can be delayed until only the last row of producers remains.
• Because of the unusually small number of injectors compared with the number of producers, it takes a long time
for the injected water to fill up the reservoir gas space. The result is a delay in the field response to the flood.
• For a successful peripheral flood, the formation permeability must be large enough to permit the movement the
injected water at the desired rate over the distance of several well spacings from injection wells to the last line
of producers.
OVERALL RECOVERY EFFICIENCY
The overall recovery factor (efficiency) RF of any secondary or tertiary oil recovery method is the
product of a combination of three individual efficiency factors as given by the following generalized
expression.
RF = E E E V A

In terms of cumulative oil production, Equation 14-5 can be written as

N = N E E E
A V
RF = overall recovery factor
NS= initial oil in place at the start of the flood, STB
NP= cumulative oil produced, STB
ED= displacement efficiency
EA= areal sweep efficiency
EV= vertical sweep efficiency
The displacement efficiency EDis the fraction of movable oil that has been displaced from the swept zone at any
given time or pore volume injected. Because an immiscible gas injection or waterflood will always
leave behind some residual oil, EDwill always be less than 1.0. The areal sweep efficiency EAis the fractional area of
the pattern that is swept by the displacing fluid. The major factors determining areal sweep are:

• Fluid mobilities
• Pattern type
• Areal heterogeneity
• Total volume of fluid injected
Water Flooding in AFPC
1.Introduction

Al Furat Petroleum Company (AFPC) is a joint venture company located in Syria. It operates some 40 oil fields
located in the Euphrates Basin in Eastern Syria. The reservoirs are mainly sandstone and contain light oil. They
show a wide range of complexity from marine massive sandstones to fluvial channel networks. Water injection has
been applied at early stages in most of the fields so after about 15 years of production under water flooding, this
provide a very good setof case histories, reservoir analogues and benchmarks for waterflooded fields. In this paper,
we will try to present how water flooding has been implemented and reservoirs managed to reach to relatively high
recovery factors.
2. Justification
Water injection has been applied in fields where the natural water drive is not sufficient to maintain pressure and
production with the objective to maximize the ultimate recovery from these fields. Initial reservoir studies predicted
that if we had continued production depending on the available natural drive mechanisms, the recovery factors
would have ranged from 5 – 30 %, which is considered too low given the nature of fields’ reservoirs and oils.

Conclusions of the topic

• Water flooding has generally shown very good performance in fields with recovery
factors reaching to over 60 %.
• Any disappointing results are mainly related to the complexity and heterogeneity of some reservoirs.
• Reservoir monitoring and management are key tools to guarantee and maintain good water flooding
performance.
• There are always challenges against successful water flooding projects, however,identifying these
challenges as early as possible will help solving them on time and minimize their impact on the total
expected reward from water.
References

• ARPR 1.1.2007 AFPC

Water Flooding (gpaul willhite)
• Ahmed, Tarek-Reservoir_Engineering_Handbook
• Amyx - Petroleum Reservoir Engineering
• Archer_J[1]._S._-_Petroleum_Engineering_Principles_and_Practice
• Baker Hughes INTEQ - Formation Pressure Evaluation