II.

Secondary Recovery
Primary recovery should be distinguished clearly from secondary recovery. Secondary recovery
defines as "the injection of (fluids) after the reservoir has reached a state of substantially
complete depletion of its initial content of energy available for (fluid) expulsion or where the
production rates have approached the limits of profitable operation." [Secondary recovery
techniques increase the reservoir's pressure by water injection, natural gas reinjection and gas
lift, which injects carbon dioxide or some other gas into the bottom of an active well, reducing
the overall density of fluid in the wellbore. Because primary recovery invariably results in
pressure depletion, secondary recovery requires "repressuring" or increasing the reservoir
pressure
Primary recovery includes pressure-maintenance methods. Pressure maintenance can be defined
as "the operation of (fluid) injection into a reservoir during the course of its primary-production
history." The main effect of pressure maintenance is to mitigate the reservoir’s pressure decline
and conserve its energy. The purpose of pressure maintenance is ultimately to improve oil
recovery. The most common injected fluids for pressure maintenance are water and separator or
residue gas.
"Partial" and "complete" pressure maintenance describe the general effectiveness of a given
pressure-maintenance operation to retard the rate of pressure decline. Partial pressure
maintenance refers to fluid injection while a general state of pressure decline still exists. Full or
complete pressure maintenance refers to fluid injection while the reservoir pressure remains
essentially constant.
Secondary-recovery methods such as waterflooding are not strictly pressure-maintenance
operations because they begin after pressure depletion. However, if water injection takes place
before the end of pressure depletion, which is not uncommon, it is considered a pressure-
maintenance method. If water is injected before the end of primary recovery, the reservoir is
classified as an artificial waterdrive. However, many have loosely applied the term pressure
maintenance to include any fluid-injection strategy at any stage in the reservoir’s production.

The practice of waterflood

Waterflooding consists of injecting water into selected wells while producing from the
surrounding wells. It displaces oil from the injector to the producer, while maintaining
reservoir pressure. Water is an efficient agent for displacing light or medium gravity oil in a
relatively homogeneous formation where high permeability channels are not encountered. As
mentioned earlier, the success of waterflooding hinges on favorable economics, i.e., low capital
investments and operating costs resulting in significant enhancements in oil production over a
long period.
In earlier days, waterflooding had often been initiated in depleted or nearly depleted reservoirs
with a free gas phase present. In the initial stage of the waterflooding process, injected water fills
up the pores previously occupied by gas, which is redissolved in solution, and the reservoir
pressure is restored. More efficient waterflooding practices, however, require water injection
above the bubble point pressure of oil in order to avoid the evolution of gas in the reservoir.
Liberation of dissolved gas leads to lower relative permeability to the oil phase, and lower
production rates, as gas becomes mobile. There are instances in the past, however, where water
has been injected slightly below the bubble point.
Reservoir response due to waterflood
A typical waterflood response is characterized by an increase in oil rate, followed by a decline,
and an eventual breakthrough of injected water at the producers. Figure below is a typical plot of
the oil production rates versus waterflood life for a successful waterflood performance in a
reservoir with a gas cap. It presents the filling up of pore spaces initially occupied by free gas,
and the incline and decline of the secondary oil saturation periods. The water–oil ratio continues
to rise with time, and the economic limit is reached when water production becomes excessive.

Figure Example of a successful waterflood performance. A substantial amount of oil is

recovered by waterflooding (secondary recovery), as indicated by shaded section.

Factors affecting waterflood performance

The response to waterflooding primarily depends upon the following:
• Well spacing, i.e., distance between producers and injectors
• Waterflood pattern, i.e., relative location of injectors and producers
• Schedule of conversion from injector to producer
• Fluid properties, including viscosity and gravity
• Rock properties, including the ratio of vertical to horizontal permeability, relative
permeability characteristics, water–oil mobility ratio, capillary pressure, and
wettability
• Multistage fracturing in tight formations to improve water injectivity
• Reservoir heterogeneities, including the presence of fractures and high
permeability streaks, stratification or layering and lateral discontinuities
• Water injection rate and well injectivity, i.e., injection capacity
• Timing of waterflood operations
 Waterflood pattern, well spacing, and conversion schedule
Historically, waterflooding has been implemented through injectors and producers where the
location of the wells follows a definite pattern.

(c) Peripheral water drive

(d) Five-spot pattern: (a) Regular and (b) inverted

 Conversion of pattern at later stages of waterflood. Also shows spacing.

Oil gravity
Water is less efficient in displacing heavy oil having a high viscosity. Waterflooding can be
uneconomic below oil gravity of 20˚API. However, waterflood recovery increases in reservoirs
where oil is of light to intermediate gravity (40–20˚API).
Mobility ratio
The mobility ratio of water to oil is one of the most critical factors to influence waterflood
efficiency. When mobility is greater than one, it is considered unfavorable as water is more
mobile than oil in the porous medium; injected water tends to bypass oil and early breakthrough
is experienced at the producers. At a mobility ratio of less than one, water is less mobile than oil
leading to better displacement and recovery of oil.

where M = mobility ratio; kr = relative permeability; m = viscosity; λ = mobility = k/µ; k =

permeability; o, w = subscripts denoting oil and water, respectively.
The volumetric sweep efficiency at any time is the fraction of the total reservoir
volume contacted by the injected fluid during the recovery. When using water,
consideration of the mobility of the fluids is an important factor when determining the
area and vertical sweep efficiencies. This would help to determine the mobility ratio. If M is
less than one (1), then oil is capable of travelling at a rate equivalent to the water. An
increase in the viscosity of the oil would mean that M would increase and this would lead
to the injected fluid moving around the oil. This would also make it harder for the oil to penetrate
the pore. To improve this ratio, the viscosity of the water has to be increased. When M is greater
than one, the displacing fluid has greater mobility than the displaced fluid.

Vertical permeability
In some reservoirs, a good vertical to horizontal permeability ratio is observed to have good
vertical sweep efficiency and recovery of oil.
Reservoir heterogeneity
During waterflooding, the performance of the reservoir is greatly influenced by the inherent
heterogeneities present in the geologic formation. Reservoirs are made of multiple strata or
layers, which are not uniform in their properties such as lithology, porosity, permeability, pore
size distributions, wettability, fluid properties, and interstitial water saturation. The properties
vary in both areal and vertical directions. The heterogeneity of the reservoirs is attributed to the
variations in depositional environments and geologic events, as well as the nature of the particles
constituting the sediments. Waterflood recovery efficiency decreases with increasing reservoir
heterogeneity.
Optimum well injection rate
The rate of oil recovery depends upon the water injection rate into a reservoir. For an injection
well, the optimum injection rate ensures maximum contact with residual oil and recovers oil
within the desired time frame.
The water injection rate, which can vary throughout the life of the project, is influenced by many
factors. The variables affecting the injection rates are rock and fluid properties, fluid mobility
values in the swept and unswept regions, and the well geometry, i.e., pattern, spacing, and
wellbore radius.
Injection pressure
During injection, care is taken to inject water below the threshold pressure that would fracture
the formation. In case the formation is fractured, injected water is lost through the fracture and
there is little buildup of reservoir pressure. As a result, water does not displace oil and the
effectiveness of waterflood is minimal.
 Water injectivity
Water injectivity is defined as the rate of water injection over the pressure differential between
the injector and the producer. It has the unit of barrels per day per pounds per square inch
(bbl/d/psi). Decline in water injectivity is observed during the early stages of injection into a
reservoir depleted by solution gas drive. This occurs as pore spaces initially occupied by free gas
are gradually filled up. Following fillup, the injectivity of water depends upon the mobility ratio.
Multistage fracturing
Tight reservoirs are unfavorable for water injection as the injectivity is quite low. Horizontal
wells are drilled combined with multistage fracturing to enhance injectivity in low permeability
formations.
Timing of waterflooding
Based on field experience and reservoir simulation studies, efficient waterflooding practices
involve water injection above the bubble point pressure of oil. Oil remains as a single-phase fluid
without any evolution of gas ensuring the attainment of maximum recovery. Hence, water
injection and pressure maintenance operations are initiated early in the life cycle of the reservoir
prior to the fall of reservoir pressure to the bubble point.

Gas Injection
Gas reinjection is the reinjection of natural gas into an underground reservoir, typically one
already containing both natural gas and crude oil, in order to increase the pressure within the
reservoir and thus induce the flow of crude oil or else sequester gas that cannot be exported. This
is not to be confused with gas lift, where gas is injected into the annulus of the well rather than
the reservoir.
After the crude has been pumped out, the natural gas is once again recovered. Since many of the
wells found around the world contain heavy crude, this process increases their production. The
basic difference between light crude and heavy crude is its viscosity and pumpability - the lighter
the crude the easier it is to pump. Recovery of hydrocarbons in a well is generally limited to 50%
(heavy crudes) and 75-80% (light crudes). Recycling of natural gas or other inert gases causes
the pressure to rise in the well, thus causing more gas molecules to dissolve in the oil lowering
its viscosity and thereby increasing the well's output.
Air is not suitable for repressuring wells because it tends to cause deterioration of the oil, thus
carbon dioxide or natural gas is used to repressure the well. The term 'gas-reinjection' is also
sometimes referred to as repressuring--the term being used only to imply that the pressure inside
the well is being increased to aid recovery.
Injection or reinjection of carbon dioxide also takes place in order to reduce the emission of
CO2 into the atmosphere, a form of carbon sequestration. This has been proposed as a method to
combat climate change, allowing mass storage of CO2 over a geological timescale. Reinjection
of carbon dioxide in the Norwegian Sleipner gas field saves the operators 1 million Norwegian
Kroners per day in national carbon taxes.
 Gas lift
Gas lift or bubble pumps use the artificial lift technique of raising a fluid such as water or oil by
introducing bubbles of compressed air, water vapor or other vaporous bubbles into the outlet
tube. This has the effect of reducing the hydrostatic pressure in the outlet tube vs. the hydrostatic
pressure at the inlet side of the tube.
In the petroleum industry, the process involves injecting gas through the tubing-casing annulus.
Injected gas aerates the fluid to reduce its density; the formation pressure is then able to lift the
oil column and forces the fluid out of the wellbore. Gas may be injected continuously or
intermittently, depending on the producing characteristics of the well and the arrangement of the
gas-lift equipment.
The amount of gas to be injected to maximize oil production varies based on well conditions and
geometries. Too much or too little injected gas will result in less than maximum production.
Generally, the optimal amount of injected gas is determined by well tests, where the rate of
injection is varied and liquid production (oil and perhaps water) is measured.
Although the gas is recovered from the oil at a later separation stage, the process requires energy
to drive a compressor to raise the pressure of the gas to a level where it can be re-injected.

Gas lift is a form of artificial lift where gas bubbles lift the oil from the well
III. Enhanced Oil Recovery