OTC 17258
Water Management in Petrobras: Developments and Challenges
A.L.S. Souza, M.W. Figueiredo, C. Kuchpil, M.C. Bezerra, A.G. Siqueira, and C.A. Furtado, Petrobras S.A.
Copyright 2005, Offshore Technology Conference
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Abstract
This paper presents some of the most important aspects of
water management in Petrobras offshore fields, as well as its
challenges and perspectives.
Several studies related to water management have
been conducted in order to understand and quantify the main
uncertainties of waterflooding projects, such as the injectivity
decline, the dynamics of fracture propagation in injection
wells, the scale formation tendency, the reservoir souring
potential, the environmental constraints and the development
of new technologies.
The conclusions point out that all aspects related to
the water management must be investigated and quantified
since the very beginning of a waterflooding project.
Introduction
Waterflooding is still the most common method used
worldwide for improving oil recovery, either after production
by primary mechanisms or even at the early stages of the field
lifetime. For offshore fields, operators have been
manipulating, in the recent few years, huge amounts of water
from both the injection and production streams.
Figure 1 shows the water management cycle with all
the concerns and main factors that affect waterflooding
projects. The left side presents the technologies related to
water injection, that is, with flow rate maintenance, which
includes injectivity decline, water quality specification,
fracture propagation, raw-water injection and dump flooding.
The right side shows the subjects related to water production,
such as water shut-off, scaling, souring, downhole oil-water
separation and subsea oil-water separation. Other issues to be
considered are environmental constraints, corrosion, and water
content in oil transferred to onshore terminals, which can not
be disposed close to shoreline.
In Brazil, Petrobras deals with over 3 million barrels
of water per day, including injection, production and Re-
Injection. In offshore fields (1, 2), the volumes of sea-water
injected exceed 1,500,000 bbl/day and the water production
reaches values over 600,000 bbl/day. Predictions are that, by
the end of 2006, 3,200,000 bbl/day of water will be injected.
Injection water flow rate maintenance and produced water
management are the main challenges for the next years.
Due to the importance of water injection for the
economics of Petrobras oilfields, water management has
become one of the company main priorities. Several studies
have been performed related to the water management cycle in
order to understand and quantify the main uncertainties of a
waterflooding project. These include modeling and monitoring
of injectivity decline, produced water re-injection, injection
with fracture propagation pressure, scale formation tendency,
reservoir souring potential, environmental restrictions and
subsea technologies.
It must be emphasized that problems which are
usually simple when faced in onshore fields, such as
stimulation of injection wells that have lost injectivity, are
much more difficult to be solved in an offshore environment,
especially where many wells are located in deepwater areas
and completed as satellite wells. Consequently, any workover
operation is extremely expensive, since it demands the
presence of a floating rig. For such situations, bullheading
operations should be considered as an alternative.
The next sections present some the most important
aspects of the recent developments in water management for
Petrobras offshore fields, as well as the current challenges and
future perspectives. The following topics are emphasized:
• Simulations of injectivity decline, either for Seawater
Injection (SWI) or Produced Water Re-Injection (PWRI).
• Injection above Fracture Propagation Pressure (IFPP) and
its impact on oil recovery. Previous knowledge of fracture
propagation direction is mandatory for a successful
project.
• Directions used for PWRI in offshore fields and the main
factors that affect PWRI.
• Problems arising during water production, mainly scaling
and souring.
2 OTC 17258
• New technologies, such as subsea raw water injection and
subsea oil-water separation, planned to be applied in some
Petrobras deepwater fields in the next years.
Injectivity Decline
The water management strategy has a great impact to oil
Companies (3). One of the most important demands is the water
injection flow rate maintenance. A reliable evaluation of the
injectivity decline of individual wells is required to achieve
the best economical option: to perform a rigorous water
injection treatment (resulting in fewer well treatments) or, in
opposition, to inject poorly treated water (leading to an
increase of workover operations).
The impact of the injectivity loss in Net Present
Value (NPV) can be schematically seen in Figure 2. As the
injection water flow rate decreases, the oil recovery delays and
recovery factor decreases (blue line). In an even worse
situation, the reservoir pressure can drop bellow to oil bubble
point pressure (BPP) and the recovery not only can be
delayed, but also reduced (pink line).
During water injection, several factors contribute to
change the water flow rate and pressure, in other terms, the
well injectivity index. Rock and fluids characteristics, well
geometry and mobility ratio are some of these mechanisms.
However, operational efficiency and formation damage are by
far the main factors that affect water injection flow rate
maintenance.
Operational efficiency depends on several factors,
such as energy supply, platform conditions, mechanical pumps
efficiency and even operators skills.
Formation damage can occur due to fines migration,
salt precipitation, and mainly by solids and oil particles
present in water. These particles can be retained in the
reservoir rock pores and in the cake formed, causing
permeability impairment and loss of injectivity.
Figure 3 shows the dimensionless injectivity index
evolution for several Petrobras offshore wells under seawater
injection. It can be seen that the injectivity can be reduced to
as low as 10% of its initial value. The black line represents a
data regression giving an average performance for the wells.
Based on classical filtration and conservation
equations (4), Petrobras has developed, together with some
Brazilian universities, a model to study the loss of well
injectivity. A program called INJECT was generated to make
field predictions using the results of laboratory experiments
for water-oil displacement in cores as the input data. Some of
these tests have been carried on in-loco, that is, in platform or
at the field facilities, assuring preservation of the injected
water characteristics.
Another important result of these studies is the so
called “three-point method” (5), which consists in monitoring
the pressure not only at the two extremities of the core sample,
but also at an intermediate point, close to the sample inlet face.
With this additional point, all the parameters needed to
represent the physical model can be univocally determined.
Figure 4 shows the evolution of injectivity decline for
an offshore well resulting from an INJECT program
simulation.
Injectivity Decline Control
The solutions for injectivity loss are neither simple
nor cheap. The normal way to deal with the problem is to
improve the water quality, which can include deaeration,
hydrocyclones, filters, biocides and, last but not least,
corrosion-free lines, in order to avoid the increase of the
amount of solids and bacteria going to the reservoir.
Petrobras has been injecting sea-water in offshore
fields for many years. The water quality has been monitored
using an index (IQUAI) that evaluates the performance of the
many treatment operations for sea-water injection, such as
corrosion parameters, bacteria control, filtration, etc.
Well workovers are also a way to mitigate formation
damage. This can be quite expensive in deepwater if a floating
rig is needed. For this reason, remote treatments can be a good
alternative. Remote treatments using acid to remove damage
in some Petrobras offshore injection wells were performed
with very good results.
It is likewise possible to compensate the loss of
injection water flow rate of one or several wells by increasing
the flow rate of other wells or by drilling new wells. Subsea
raw water injection, which will be discussed in a later section,
can also be considered in this option.
Any of these solutions can be very expensive, some
in CAPEX, others in OPEX. It can be cheaper to increase the
injection pressure, allowing some loss of injectivity to occur,
but avoiding the reduction of injection water flow rate. This
normally leads to the IFPP, which will be discussed next.
Injection above Fracture Propagation Pressure
(IFPP)
Maintenance of the injection water flow rate can be achieved
even when low quality water is used, provided that injection
pressures are high enough to keep a fracture opened. This is
largely applied in North Sea and Alaska, where the thermal
induction effect helps the process of opening a fracture and
keeping its propagation (6, 7).
In Petrobras, several wells in some onshore fields use
IFPP. There are some offshore wells already injecting with
fracture. A pilot test will be performed this year in an offshore
field, since the idea is to extend the technique to several
injection projects, including deepwater fields.
Several aspects must be studied in an IFPP process,
including the fracture penetration in horizontal and vertical
directions, pressures, propagation direction and sweeping
effects. Fracture propagates in a plane that is orthogonal to the
minimum tension. This plane is normally vertical, for deep
reservoirs. For a safe injection, the geometry and growth of the
fracture along time should be reliably modeled.
OTC 17258
Petrobras has developed a simulator (PROPAG), based on
geomechanics equations (8), to model the fracture growth and
propagation. Figure 5 shows an output of the program, with
the fracture penetration in the horizontal direction versus time
for a typical offshore field. It shows that penetration
approaches 100 m after 10 years, which is quite reasonable,
since the distance between wells is nearly 1000 m. Figure 6
shows another PROPAG code output, with the fracture
penetration to the adjacent formations versus time for the same
field. It can be seen that penetration is quite small, in the scale
of centimeters.
PROPAG program estimates the parting pressure by
using geomechanics equations. This pressure can also be
obtained from well step-rate test or from typical basin fracture
gradient.
Finally, the impact of fracture propagation in sweep
efficiency is also a point to be considered when starting a new
waterflooding project. Thus, the knowledge of fracture
propagation direction is very important to locate properly the
wells. This direction can be obtained by several methods,
including break-out analysis and micro-fracturing.
The fracture normally propagates behind the water
front, meaning that, even if its direction is straight to the
producer, the impact in oil recovery may not be so huge (9). In
fact, for any angle between the propagation direction and the
Injector-Producer Axis (IPA) greater than 45°, there is an
increase in oil recovery. It can be seen in Figure 7, where the
fracture propagates in an orthogonal direction to IPA, and
there is an improvement in oil recovery due to the fracture
propagation.
Even for injection at high flow rates, some studies (10)
show that the reduction in oil recovery due to fracture
propagation is fully compensated by the loss of injectivity that
would happen if the injection was performed with no fracture.
Figure 8 shows an example where the fracture propagates in
the IPA direction. Although there is a loss in oil recovery for
this situation, well injectivity loss can be as detrimental or yet
worse, as shown in Figure 9. This picture shows the profit
versus lasting injectivity. The black line corresponds to the
injection without fracture and the blue horizontal line to the
injection with fracture propagation in the IPA direction (which
is assumed to occur with no overall injectivity losses). The
crossing point of the lines indicates the minimum injectivity
value at which is not advantageous, under the criteria of
foreseen profit, to fracture the injection well. In Figure 9, this
point corresponds to an injectivity loss of about 30% of the
original value. Since injectivity falls normally below that and
fracture propagation will be normally in another direction than
IPA, IFPP can be almost always a good option.
Subsea Raw Water Injection (SRWI)
The economic impact of the water injection in many
submarine fields is significant, thus the development of
technologies that make possible the water injection where
there are technical or economical restrictions can be very
useful. An alternative that could bring many benefits is the
Subsea Raw Water Injection (SRWI).
3
The conventional systems to inject water in
submarine wells depend on large equipment; the installation of
this equipment requires large areas that, in some cases, are
unavailable. SRWI systems could bring the following benefits:
a) it makes the water injection feasible where there are
restrictions to install or upgrade a conventional system; b) it
could present lower CAPEX and OPEX than conventional
systems; c) it makes possible to use smaller processing plants
and smaller floating production units; d) it provides more
flexibility, thus it gives the chance to postpone investments
and the system installation when water injection is not
required at early stages, enabling the production of a field in
phases.
SRWI involves some technical challenges, such as:
seawater compatibility with the reservoir rock and fluids,
subsea filtering system, microbiological control, monitoring
system, equipment reliability etc. A general overview of a
Subsea Raw Water Injection system is shown in figure 10.
Many of the required equipment had already been used in
similar applications. However, as well in the conventional
water injection schemes, a systemic approach is important.
In order to evaluate and develop this technology,
PETROBRAS created an R&D project. After studies to
evaluate feasible scenarios, establish technical specifications
and examine potential suppliers, Albacora field was chosen to
host a SRWI prototype. It is necessary to increase the water
injection flow rate in some reservoirs of the Albacora field
and, due to technical constrains, it is not possible to install
neither upgrade the conventional system of the current floating
production units, thus a SWRI system could be the faster
solution to part of these demands.
PETROBRAS intends to install this prototype in
Albacora Field at the second half of 2006. Its main technical
characteristics will be: water depth of 440 m, maximum flow
rate of 5,000 m3/day, maximum pump differential pressure of
2,400 psi and nominal electrical power of 1,5 MW.
Produced Water Management
In the beginning of the field life, the produced liquid is
predominantly oil, but with the maturity, mostly in fields that
rely on waterflooding as oil recovery mechanism, the oil flow
rates decline while water flow rates becomes progressively
greater.
As many of Petrobras exploiting strategies rely
heavily on waterflooding and as many oils have reservoir
viscosities in the range of 5 to 15 cp, large amounts of
produced water are expected as the fields get mature. This
drives to the consideration of technologies like subsea oil-
water separation and produced water re-injection or disposal in
non-producing geological formations.
The use of polymers for water shut-off, as a
consequence of good results achieved in onshore wells, is
another area of interest. Higher salinities, temperatures,
permeabilities and produced volumes, when compared to
onshore conditions, are the challenges to be overcome.
4 OTC 17258
Problems with water production are not only related
to the surface facilities capacity to process huge volumes of
fluids, but also to scaling, souring and the produced water
destination after treatment. In the next sections, these points
are explained in more details.
Scale management
Scale management strategy for new fields is defined in the
project development phase, based on risk analysis and
economic evaluation criteria. Besides scale tendency, other
factors, like type of completion and difficulty to access the
well, are considered for each field.
For scale tendency assessment, formation water is
sampled and its composition characterized (Table 1) whenever
possible in exploratory wells. Based on thermodynamic
models, low to moderate scaling potential (mass of precipitate
and saturation index) has been forecasted to Campos Basin
deepwater fields (11) (Table 2).
Scale Management is highly dependent on the
scenario where it occurs. Petrobras has defined scale
management strategy for six new deepwater fields located in
water depths from 1,000 to 2,000 m (11).
Typical characteristics considered in this decision
are: well type (dry or wet Christmas tree) and completion
(vertical, horizontal, deviated, gravel packed), high water flow
rates (up to 15,000 bbl/d), long horizontal wells and reservoir
layers (extension and degree of heterogeneity).
The main technologies considered to manage scale
formation are chemical treatments (scale removal and scale
inhibitor squeeze), sulfate removal from injected seawater or,
whenever possible, low sulfate content water injection from
aquifers non-associated with oil producing reservoirs.
In the Roncador field project (deepwater, deviated,
gravel packed and subsea wells), a decision was made for the
installation of a sulfate removal plant. The difficulty of placing
scale inhibitors into a compartmented heterogeneous reservoir
through wells located at long distances from the platforms
played an important role on this choice (12).
Marlim Leste risk analysis took into account the
scenario of deepwater, gravel packed, subsea and horizontal
wells. Uncertainties on the chemical treatment of long
horizontal wells, which would require workover rig, made the
sulfate removal plant the best cost effective option (13).
X field has decided, during its development phase, to
base its scaling management on chemical treatments (inhibitor
squeezes and scale removal operations).
Petrobras has one seawater sulfate removal plant
operating in Roncador field. Others should be installed in a
near future, in other deepwater fields.
Higher scale potential is expected in topside facilities
(heat exchangers), as a consequence of the high temperature
needed to treat heavy oil and of the mixture of waters
produced from various wells, with various contents of sea
injected water, displaying different scaling tendencies. In
order to reduce periodic workovers, prevention is being
considered by injecting inhibitor through umbilical lines,
although scale removal could be performed whenever
necessary.
First consequences of scale formed in subsea wells
were observed in Marlim field by 2002. Petrobras has joined
its experience to deal with deepwater subsea wells with
expertise on scale management to design safe and effective
treatments (14). Up today, around fifty chemical treatments
(scale removal and/or inhibitor squeezes) have been
bullheaded in order to manage scale formation in deepwater
wells. It was observed that the type of completion plays an
important role on the efficiency of the treatments.
The main challenges to be overcome are:
improvement on durability of inhibitor treatments;
improvement of chemical divergence to guarantee an even and
non-damaging placement of scale dissolvers and scale
inhibitors in long horizontal wells; modeling of precipitation
reactions throughout the reservoir; and optimization of
desulfation process (membrane chemical compatibility and
decrease in fouling and precipitation).
Reservoir souring control
Reservoir souring occurs whenever an increase in the
hydrogen sulphide (H2S) concentration produced from an oil
reservoir initially sweet is observed. SWI or PWRI can induce
reservoir souring, as sulfate and/or carbon sources are supplied
to the reservoir. To get energy to survive and grow, sulfate-
reducing bacteria (SRB) populations require sulfate to its
anaerobic respiration, as well as carbon sources, mainly
volatile fatty acids, to feed on. SRB metabolism produces CO2
and H2S. SRB can be indigenous of the reservoir, or be
introduced during drilling/ completion operations, as well as
during water (re)injection itself.
Water salinity and temperature strongly impacts SRB
activity. The ideal conditions are TDS < 100,000 mg/l,
temperature between 15 and 45 °C for mesophilic species, and
between 40 and 80 °C for thermophilic species. Other
conditions influences SRB activity, but comfortable
environments are typically available for them in oil reservoirs:
redox potential (under -150 mV), pH (between 6 and 9) and
pressure (under 45 MPa).
Hydrogen sulfide, generated by SRB in the water
phase, is partitioned to the other phases, moving in all present
phases towards the production wells. Part of the H2S remains
in the residual oil and in the free gas. It also can be consumed
in the reservoir by reacting with iron minerals, such as siderite.
The main problems associated with H2S production
are: very aggressive corrosion of the metallic materials in the
production, processing and export facilities; arising HSE costs
due to toxicity of produced fluids (many deaths by H2S
inhalation are reported in the petroleum industry history);
generation of iron sulfide ("black powder"), that clogs filters
and other equipments; incompatibility with production
chemicals, like some corrosion inhibitors, emulsion breakers
etc; conformance with gas export and oil quality criteria.
OTC 17258
Souring must be managed since field design and
planning stages, as well as for operating fields. The first step is
to develop souring predictions to supply field design demands
(basically, souring potential and H2S production profile during
the field production lifetime). Modeling reservoir souring is a
very difficult task and there are many great uncertainties, so
industry is seeking for souring simulation improvements in
order to obtain reliable design data. The main uncertainties,
besides a detailed geological description and knowledge of
reservoir flow paths, are related to quantification of bacterial
activity in reservoir conditions, identification of limiting
factors to SRB metabolism (availability of carbon sources,
sulfate content, trace nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus), H2S
mineral scavenging capacity of the reservoir rock and,
outstanding, souring conceptual models.
There are two main souring conceptual models.
According to the mixing zone model (15), souring occurs at the
injection water front, where it mixes with formation water and
both, carbon sources and sulfate, are present. This would result
in a relatively sharp increase of produced H2S to high levels,
shortly after the injection water breakthrough, followed by a
smooth H2S concentration decrease. The second conceptual
model is the biofilm model (16), which considers that H2S
generation takes place in a region close to the injection well,
as the lower temperature and water salinity gives better
conditions to the SRB activity. The biofilm model results in a
slow increase of H2S concentration to values significantly
smaller than that obtained with the mixing zone model.
All the pertinent information available must be used
to perform a risk analysis, based on which material selection is
developed/ reviewed, treatment plant is designed/ adapted and
a souring prevention/ mitigation strategy is selected.
Souring prevention strategies typically relate to the
injection side of the water cycle (Fig. 1): injection water
quality control (limiting nutrient and bacteria introduction in
the reservoir), biocide injection (17, 18) and nitrate injection (19).
Sulfate removal by nano-filtration can be regarded as a
souring prevention method (20), but in practice, due to the high
costs involved, scale control is the main reason whenever it is
adopted, souring control being considered only as an indirect
benefit of sulfate removal in cases where water sulfate content
is the limiting factor to SRB metabolism. Otherwise, usually
referred to the production side of the water cycle (Fig. 1),
souring mitigation strategies comprise practices like
application of effective hydrogen sulfide scavengers and/or
nitrite squeezes in production wells (21). These strategies are
not mutually exclusive, so is not uncommon that more than
one are simultaneously applied in the same oilfield.
Based on these initial definitions, an asset integrity
management plan can be proposed, consisting of the
monitoring of water injection system, in terms of water quality
(including microbial control), and of both, injection and
production systems, regarding corrosion, scaling, microbial
growth, produced H2S, process facilities, chemicals
performance, health and safety, and working practices. Then, a
contingency plan and operating procedures must be detailed
and implemented. Each item must be monitored and
corrections made if results show they are required.
5
Historically, Petrobras has faced reservoir souring
since decades ago, in some onshore fields of the Reconcavo
Basin where sea-water was formerly injected. To manage the
problem, the injection of seawater was substituted by fresh
water and/or produced water, the pipelines and other
production facilities were replaced by adopting sour service
materials and hydrogen sulfide scavengers are still applied. In
offshore fields, there is only a recent occurrence of H2S
production, but in a few wells of a restricted region of a field.
While working in a model to describe what is being observed,
a contingency plan was detailed and implemented and the
problem is kept under control with the use of H2S scavengers
applied by the gas-lift system.
Petrobras efforts towards developments in reservoir
souring are focused in souring modeling (what includes
microbiological and mineral scavenging studies, SRB
nutrients availability in the reservoir and, of course, reservoir
simulation), monitoring issues, materials investigations and
related corrosion aspects, H2S scavengers development and
selection and, last but not least, studies (including field trials)
about souring control methods, like biocides and nitrate/nitrite
injection. These efforts are being conducted internally, by
multidisciplinary teams, and in association with researchers of
Brazilian universities, besides engagement in JIPs conducted
by internationally recognized technical organizations and
contracting of customized lab services.
Produced Water Re-injection (PWRI)
Once large amounts of produced water cannot be avoided,
destination of this water is another challenge. The usual
disposal in the sea, after some treatment to remove oil content,
may not be feasible due to lack of space on the platforms.
Furthermore, environmental regulations have become more
restrictive and future trends are that any disposal in the sea
may become prohibited. Brazilian current laws state that the
oil-in-water (OIW) content in produced water to be disposed
in the sea should be lower than 20 ppm. Therefore, re-injection
in the reservoir or disposal in non-productive formations must
be considered as the options to overcome such situations.
Petrobras has been re-injecting produced water in
onshore fields for many years. Some offshore re-injection
projects have started in 2003 and, depending on their
performance, several other fields will be using the same
procedure.
Predict injectivity decline during PWRI is a task that
challenges several researchers, which use physical and
mathematical models to solve it. As mentioned at Injectivity
Decline section, a program called INJECT was developed to
predict the injector behavior using parameters obtained from
coreflood tests.
Figure 11 shows the result of such tests, comparing
the flow behavior of two different samples of produced water
injected through analogous core samples. Results like these,
together with mathematical models like INJECT, help to
optimize the specification of oil content in separated produced
6 OTC 17258
water (acceptable damage with low costs) and evaluate if a
filtration unit is necessary for solids removal.
PWRI may cause other effects in oil exploitation
process that should be evaluated before its start. Some
examples of these effects are:
• higher temperature of injection water, leading to
a better injectivity and changes in fracture
propagation;
• increasing in liquid flow rate due to the
debottlenicking of water treatment system;
• replacement of flowline and equipment materials
by compatible ones;
• evaluation of scaling and souring potentials.
Subsea oil-water separation
Exploitation of large offshore oilfields are commonly related
to the use of large floating production units (FPU) due to the
high capacity of the process plant, that must be able to deal
with large amounts of liquids and gas.
The large quantities of water produced by mature
reservoirs are the main drive for the development of a subsea
system, able to separate the water from the oil and to re-inject
it in the reservoir or in a non-producing formation, minimizing
the impact of high flow rates of produced water to the topside
facilities. However, to achieve this goal, some challenging
issues must be addressed.
First of all, the system must be able to separate
significant amounts of water at the subsea environment. In
Marlim field, one of the potential scenarios for the subsea
processing system, oil phase shows high tendency to strong
emulsion formation. This is shown in Figure 12, where the
separation velocity is analyzed for different temperatures and
watercuts. To achieve separation at the topside, the use of
chemical emulsion breakers is mandatory, as well as high
process temperatures (around 90°C). Further, the size of the
vessels allows big retention times, as the separation is purely
gravitational.
The target for the subsea system is 10% watercut in
the oil-gas stream and 100 ppm of oil in the separated water
stream. Chemicals to improve emulsion breaking and to
control scaling in the subsea system will be used, but neither
the addition of heat to the flow, nor the use of large vessels for
deepwater applications will be allowed.
Deepwater systems are under high external pressure.
Vessel diameter have a direct relationship with the wall
thickness, when buckling is the main effect to be considered
on the design, due to external pressure. High volumes and
thick walls cause very high impact on the vessel weight and,
with that, limitation on the type of boat or barge that are able
to install them.
In order to allow the system handling by conventional
boats, the adopted option was to develop the system with
compact equipment. Although this characteristic leads to
problems related to lessening the retention time and to the
ability to add heat to the liquid, it was chosen because the
separation process can be enhanced by non conventional
methods, like electrostatic coalescence and cyclonic
separation. Another aspect that allows the use of compact
systems is the separation at the same pressure of the flowline
at the point of insertion, in which part of the gas is still in
solution, leading to lower viscosities.
Petrobras is currently working on the subsea system
development in cooperation with two suppliers, considering
two different technologies independently. One is gravitational
and the other is cyclonic, both of them in addition to electro-
coalescence. Besides the separator itself, all the equipments
that allow the separator to operate subsea are been developed
and qualified. These include interface level monitoring,
control system, sand handling system and oil in water
monitoring system.
Another challenging issue is to be able to re-inject the
separated water. Most of the produced water in offshore fields
is treated and disposed to sea. To achieve the same water
quality on the subsea system is not considered feasible so far,
thus the most attractive option is to re-inject it in the reservoir
for pressure maintenance. In this way, the same wells now
used for SWI can be used for PWRI. The target of 100 ppm of
oil in the separated water is high for matrix injection,
depending on the reservoir characteristics, so that IFPP may be
necessary.
Some studies described in previous sections support
PWRI and, in order to learn more on the reservoir behavior
with re-injection of water containing different amounts of oil,
a PWRI test is been prepared to be performed in an actual
injection well with OIW content, flow rate and pressure
controlled.
Another important issue is the insertion of a subsea
separation system in a production layout not designed to that.
The type of connection of the flowline to the Christmas tree
can impose limitations to the minimum distance where the
system can be installed. Some diverless connections can only
be disconnected removing the Christmas Tree. This is a very
expensive option, as a workover rig would be necessary and
the time with no production would be too long. The
alternative, in this case, would be to recover the flowline from
the FPU to the closest possible position to the Christmas tree,
which is a little bit more than the water depth. This situation
has an impact on the separation process, as the liquid loses
heat while flowing inside this additional length of flowline and
the temperature decreases. Nowadays, modern Christmas
Trees have connection systems that can be disconnected
independently to the Tree, allowing the installation of the
separation system close to it.
As the separation system is more attractive when the
watercut is high and it is a technology under development, it
was not considered during the FPU design. This means that
access to power cables and lines crossing after insertion of the
system are problems that can occur in some production
layouts. Each case must be studied individually.
Subsea-water separation is a multidisciplinary
development, with each activity coupled to another, requiring
OTC 17258
systemic approach and cooperation between specialists to
achieve good results.
Conclusions
Water management must be carried on an integrated way,
comprehending technical, economical and environmental
aspects in all its cycle, including reservoir, well, surface
facilities and refining features.
When starting a new waterflooding project, studies
for all aspects related to water management must be carried
on, so that the project can be optimized both technically and
economically.
IFPP is a good option to overcome injectivity
problems. Special attention must be given to sweep efficiency
effects.
Petrobras has implemented a souring management
plan to its offshore fields both since the design of the UFP and
also during operating stages. Further, the company is investing
in related research and development efforts, particularly
referring to reservoir souring modeling and mitigation.
Concerning to scale management, thermodynamic
models have indicated a low to moderate risk of Barium and
Strontium Sulfate scaling for the deepwater fields of Campos
Basin.
Chemical treatments and low sulfate seawater
injection are considered for scaling control in the development
planning of each field based on risk analysis and economic
evaluation criteria.
Bullheaded scale inhibitor squeezes and dissolver
treatments have been routinely performed in subsea wells,
cutting the high costs of a workover rig and keeping the
productivity of the wells.
A sulfate removal plant is already operating in one
Brazilian deepwater field. Other plants will be installed in
different fields in a near future.
New technologies are the key to new development
projects for injection water, particularly for deepwater
oilfields.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Dr. Francisca Rosário for her
contributions and cooperation in review this paper.
We do also want to thank Petrobras for the permission to
publish this paper.
7
Nomenclature
BPP = bubble point pressure
DHOWS = Downhole Oil-Water Separation
FPU = floating production unit
HSE = Health, Safety and Environment
IFPP = Injection with Fracture Propagation Pressure
IPA = injector-producer axis
NPV = Net Present Value
OIW = Oil-in-Water
PVI = Pore Volume Injected
PWRI = Produced Water Re-injection
SRB = sulfate-reducing bacteria
SRWI = Subsea Raw Water Injection
SWI = Sea-water Injection
TDS = Total Dissolved Solids (Salinity)
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OTC 17258 9

WATER MANAGEMENT CYCLE

SURFACE ON-LINE BSW TO
TREATMENT MONITORING TERMINALS

RAW SUB-SEA OIL-WATER

WATER
PWRI DISPOSAL
SEPARATION
INJECTION IN SEA

DHWOS
LOSS OF
INJECTIVITY
RESERVOIR SCALE

IFPP
SOURING
UNDERGROUND
DISPOSAL
DUMP
WATER
FLOODING BEARING
SHUT-OFF
FORMATION
WATERFLOODING OPTIMIZATION

Figure 1: Water Management Cycle Figure 4: Injectivity Index evolution with time using INJECT
program

180,00

1 160,00

Fracture lenght (m )
0,9 140,00

0,8
Profits

120,00

0,7 100,00

0,6 80,00

0,5 60,00

0,4 40,00

0,4 0,6 0,8 1 20,00

Water rate efficiency 0,00

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Time (month)
P > BPP P < BPP

Figure 5: Fracture horizontal penetration for a typical offshore

Figure 2: Loss of profit due to loss of injection water flow rate field

0,25

INJECTIVITY INDEX vs TOTAL WATER INJECTED

100 0,20
Vertical penetration (m)

90
80
(%)

70 0,15
II final / II inicial

60
50
40 0,10

30
20
0,05
10
0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Wi 0,00
PO ÇO A PO ÇO B POÇO C 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
PO ÇO D PO ÇO E POÇO F
PO ÇO G PO ÇO H PÇO H_ PD G Time (month)
Po t ência ( PÇO H_ PD G)

Figure 3: Loss of injectivity for several offshore wells

Figure 6: Fracture vertical penetration for a typical offshore
field
10 OTC 17258

Without fracturing
Injection above fracture propagation pressure - cL = 0,25 ft / square root (min) = 2,89 m / square root (d)

0,60

0,50
Oil recovery fraction, Fr

0,40

0,30

0,20

0,10

0,00
0,00 0,50 1,00 1,50 2,00 2,50 3,00
Number of pore volumes injected, V pinj

Figure 7: Recovery factor as a function of pore volumes Figure 10: Subsea Raw Water Injection System - general
injected for IFPP in an orthogonal direction of IPA overview.

Without fracturing
Injection above fracture propagation pressure - cL = 0,25 ft / square root (min) = 2,89 m / square root (d) 1,0
0,9
0,60
0,8
Sample A
0,50 0,7
Oil recovery fraction, Fr

0,40
0,6
k/ko 0,5
0,30
0,4
0,20
0,3 Sample B
0,10 0,2
0,00
0,1
0,00 0,50 1,00 1,50 2,00 2,50 3,00
0,0
Number of pore volumes injected, V pinj
0 100 200 300 400 500 60 700 800 900
PVI
Figure 8: Recovery factor as a function of pore volumes
injected for IFPP in the direction of IPA
Figure 11: Permeability decline during water-oil displacement
in core for an offshore field data.

1
BSW = 60% BSW = 50% BSW = 45% BSW = 40%
100
0,8
90
60 °C
80
0,6
Profit

50 °C
70 40 °C
(%)

60
0,4
Separated Water

50

40
0,2
30

0 20

10
0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1
0
Injectivity 0 5 10 15 0 5 10 15 0 5 10 15 0 5 10 15 20
Gravitational Separation Time (min)
No fracture Fracture
Figure 12: Oil-water separation for different temperatures and
BSW
Figure 9: Profits due to loss of injectivity and fracture
propagation in IPA direction.