A recovery factor of 25% of the original oil-in-place is fairly poor for a waterflood.

Therefore, there appears to be a problem must be either with the displacement

efficiency, ED, or the volumetric sweep efficiency EVOL.

Displacement efficiency can be calculated from the initial and residual oil saturation data
as follows:

ED = (Soi – Sor) / Soi = (0.75–0.25)/0.75 = 0.667

Since Recovery Factor = ED * EVOL we can now calculate that the volumetric sweep
efficiency is 0.25 / 0.667 or 0.375. The slightly adverse mobility ratio of 1.2 cannot by
itself be responsible for such poor sweep efficiency.

We must now decide whether the poor sweep efficiency is caused by heterogeneities
that affect areal sweep EA or vertical sweep EV. The operator has previously assumed
that the problem is with the areal sweep. However, recovery has not improved despite
two campaigns of infill drilling. Therefore it would appear that the problem is more likely
due to vertical heterogeneity.

Reported core permeabilities range over one order of magnitude, while porosity is
essentially constant. Therefore, the highest permeability interval will be processed
approximately 10 times faster than the lowest permeability rock.

Additionally, turbidite reservoirs can frequently have subtle barriers to vertical flow that
affect the distribution of fluids.

A suggested course of action is to undertake a series of production logs in the field to

identify the layers with high water production and to assess methods for isolating these
layers from further injection. Redirecting injection to unswept layers should result in
additional oil recovery. A focused study of the available core, and log data to better
describe the vertical stratification and correlate it to the production log data would also
be helpful.