Water coning

Mechanism of water coning.

Water coning is a production-related issue in partly perforated wells in bottom-water drive

reservoirs, or wells that are finished at the reservoir's upper sections. As seen in Fig. 1, the
pressure reduction in the well during oil production tends to pull water from the aquifer
towards the well's lowest completion interval. Potential distribution close to the wellbore is
what's causing this rise in the aquifer's water content. It is important to note that water cone
formation occurs as soon as the well is generated due to a potential difference between the
water and oil phases. According to Gan, the factors that affect the water cone's upward
movement include the vertical potential gradient, aquifer activity, vertical permeability,
fractional well penetration, drainage radius, and well radius. Furthermore, under the same
potential gradient, water seems to move at a higher velocity than oil because water has a
viscosity differential that makes it more mobile than oil. As a result, the oil-water contact
increases toward the hole below the oil completion interval. If the production in infinite
acting reservoirs with a weak or inactive aquifer is low enough, the gravity disparity between
the water and oil phases will counteract the viscous force. As a result, the water cone
stabilizes and stops rising as it approaches the completion interval. On the other hand, as the
rate of production rises, so does the cone height above the oil-water contact (OWC). The
water cone becomes unstable and rises toward the well perforation intervals at a point when
the gravity differential between the water and oil cannot balance out their differences in
mobility.

Water coning control methods

Downhole water sink (DWS) method

A completion/production technique called Downhole Water Sink (DWS) is used to produce

hydrocarbons free of water from reservoirs that have a significant tendency to water-coning
and bottom-water driving. It offers a novel approach to water coning control that may both
extend the breakthrough time and greatly minimize water cut. This system uses an in-situ
hydrodynamic mechanism of coning control to eliminate water cutting at the oil-water
interface, hence producing hydrocarbons. DWS essentially involves the construction of two
completions, one at the water zone for water drainage at the oil-water contact and the other at
the oil zone for oil production. Fig. 5 shows a conventional downhole water sink (DWS)
system. The drainage completion, as shown in the picture, offers an extra pressure drop below
the oil-water contact, which helps counteract the upward force in the oil interval. Therefore,
the water cone may be significantly suppressed and the water cut following water
breakthrough may be better controlled as a result of this opposing pressure decrease in the
water interval.

Downhole water loop (DWL) method

The downhole water loop (DWL) technology was created to mitigate the setbacks (such as
managing large amounts of water at the surface) associated with the downhole water sink
(DWS) well and completion. It concerns a triple-completed well, with two of the perforations
situated in the water zone and one at the oil zone. Unlike the DWS completion, which has a
single packer, these three completions are divided by two packers. While the second
completion, the water drainage interval (WDI), is applied to simultaneously generate water
near the oil-water contact to stabilize the interface, the topmost completion in the oil zone is
used for oil production. Formation water at the WDI is re-injected into the same water zone
through the lower completion interval, the water reinjection interval (WRI), using a
submersible pump. A typical downhole water loop (DWL) technology design is shown in Fig.
6. However, Jin et al. reported that the efficiency of DWL strongly depends on the vertical
distance between the two water loop completions: water drainage and water reinjection
intervals. Therefore, the DWL technology's use in reservoirs with tiny water zones is limited
by its reliance on water looping completions intervals (aquifer).

Comparison of DWL and DWS

From the above descriptions, it can be seen that the configuration of DWL is based on DWS
and can be considered as an improved version of DWS with more parts and features. The
DWS well design has one packer, one pump and two completions, while the DWL has two
packers, two pumps and three completions. In terms of well functions, DWS produces oil and
water separately and brings both to the surface. However, there are a few shortcomings to this
approach: Pumping so much water to the surface requires a lot of energy, especially in deep
wells with strong water coning; treating so much water on the surface is costly, particularly in
offshore fields where facilities are constrained by available space; disposing of so much
produced water is harmful to the environment; the reservoir energy will be impacted when
both water and oil are drained out of the formations; consequently, there might not be enough
energy to drive the remaining oil to the well and it could lower the final recovery. These
disadvantages can be overcome by DWL, though: it doesn't need to pump as much water to
the surface—just a small pumping rate is sufficient to inject the water back into the aquifer;
water treatment is less than with a conventional well because water coning is controlled and
less water is produced; it's an environmentally friendly method of keeping the water in-situ; it
doesn't use up all of the reservoir's energy; by injecting the water back into the water zone,
the aquifer pressure can be maintained and the water drive can be maintained, which
improves the final oil recovery, particularly in reservoirs with small aquifers. In light of this,
it is evident that DWL outperforms DWS in terms of economy, operations, and environmental
impact.

Control Methods Completion Advantage(s) Limitation(s) Candidate

Reservoir

Downhole water Dual completion; Increase critical Production of Conventional

sink (DWS) above and below rate and low water water and handling reservoir with large
the oil-water cut. problems. active aquifer
contact (OWC) Delayed or More energy
breakthrough time consumption and
high lifting cost
Completion of dual
zone is expensive
than conventional
(single) well
Downhole water Triple completion; Increase critical Due to complexity Weak (inactive)
loop (DWL) one above oil- rate and low water and water coning bottom- water
water contact and cut, with delayed dynamic, it drive reservoirs
two below OWC breakthrough time; requires careful
(i.e., one Better performance design of the
completion at DI at reservoir production system;
and other at DWI) pressure Limited by the
maintenance; No thickness of the
 production and aquifer;
handling of water Completion of
at the surface, Less three intervals is
energy and expensive
consumption cost
of water pump

Because it satisfies the goals, traits, and procedures of environmental control technology, the
DWL well is an illustration of a successful environmental control technology. By lowering
the water cut of produced oil, retaining water, and preserving reservoir pressure, the DWL
technique can increase oil production while preserving the environment. Even with clean,
purified water being pumped, the injectivity decline can be postponed but not completely
avoided. The benefit of DWL (upstream performance) over DWS is that it minimizes water
cut and saves money on lifting expenses as compared to a traditional well. As you can see,
DWL technology is less economically viable and efficient in the short term than DWS, but it
is more economically feasible and efficient in the long run. Below is a graph that displays net
present value as a function of time.

Field case. Middle East reservoir

Some reservoirs in the Middle East have been experiencing issues with excessive water
output lately. Water is not expected in the production stream in the early stages of a well's
existence. Water will begin to condense during periods of high hydrocarbon production. As a
result, excessive volumes of water may be created, which will have an impact on
hydrocarbon income since it will require more money for water treatment. The cause for the
excessive water output is that many drilled wells are producing oil over the economic limit,
which is the point at which the well's individual oil production rates are insufficient to pay all
operational costs. This has resulted to a dramatic acceleration of water coning concerns.
Figure 1 illustrates the dynamics of water cut and oil production for a well sample in a
reservoir located in the Middle East region. As can be seen from the figure, excessive
hydrocarbon production certainly accelerates water storage, which leads to water entering the
production stream.

Reservoir Properties and Characteristics

The sample field includes five main reservoirs. The chosen reservoir is a thick sandstone
layer associated with an active aquifer. From a geological point of view, it is divided into two
zones. The formation has very good porosity of about 25% and very good permeability of
hundreds of millidarcy. It has a natural bottom water influx with an initial pressure (about
2,850 psi). This is a severely undersaturated reservoir with a viscosity of more than 30
centipoise and an API of about 22 (medium to heavy oil).

As shown in the figure above, water production becomes significant after a sharp increase in
oil production and consequent decrease in reservoir pressure.

Well B: liquid rate = 1,521 bpd; water cut = 88 %

Saturation log for Well B:

Five different cases will be selected to detect the best completion for DWS technology, as
shown in table 3.

Figures 17 and 18 show that, for Well B, the instances resulted in higher oil output than the
base case (without DWS Completion). Example #3 is the most common case that produces
the most oil. All DWS situations have comparable WC values for water cut. The issue here is
that, in all DWS scenarios, the water cut displayed greater values than in the base case. This
can be attributed to incorrectly selected perforation intervals or, alternatively, to the fact that
DWS is not the best option for finishing this well. In terms of both the rise in cumulative oil
output and the decrease in undesired water production, Case #3 is the best of all the DWS
instances.

Figure 24 illustrates that for Well B, all possibilities result in increased net present value
(NPV) when compared to the base case. Because Case #3 has a larger net present value
(NPV) than both the base case and the other cases, it should be chosen. Furthermore, because
Scenario #3 has the lowest amount of water cut, it is the best DWS case out of all of them.