397

CHAPTER 24

SECONDARY RECOVERY OF OIL

Ben H. Caudle

INTRODUCTION

In this paper, secondary recovery will be considered to be

those fluid injection projects which are directed toward the dis-
placement of oil into producing wells. The injection of fluid
for the primary purpose of maintaining or increasing reservoir
pressure will not be included, nor will the paper address di-
rectly the newer fluid-injection methods, often called tertiary
recovery. Thus, secondary recovery will include waterflooding
and some gas injection projects, with waterflood being the method
most often used. It is estimated that nearly half of the oil
produced daily in the United States comes from waterflood
projects [1].

NOMENCLATURE (From SPE List)

1. B = Oil formation volume factor

o
2. B = Water formation factor
w
3. E = Displacement efficiency
p
4. E = Pattern sweep efficiency
s
5. k = Permeability
6. M = Mobility ratio
7. N = Cumulative oil recovery
p
8. S = Connate water saturation

University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA.

398

9. Sgr = Residual ygas saturation

10. S = Residual oil saturation
or Ί ..
,, _. , Ί . . , -, volume innects
11. V.. = Dimensionless volumes îniected:
J == ^ =—
id pore volume x E
12.. W. = Cumulative water injected
J
1
13. y = Viscosity

THE NEED FOR SECONDARY RECOVERY

When an oil well is completed and its bore emptied of fluid,
reservoir pressure causes oil (and perhaps gas and water) to flow
into the well, where it is then lifted to the surface. As oil
production is continued, the reservoir pressure declines unless a
fluid such as water enters the reservoir to replace the produced
oil. Only a few oil reservoirs are fortunate enough to have a
contiguous aquifer which is able to supply water as fast as the
oil is normally produced. Thus, nearly all reservoirs experience
decreasing reservoir pressure during primary production. De-
creasing reservoir pressure adversely affects oil production in
two ways. First, the force necessary to drive oil into the well
bore is decreased. Second, and more important, decreasing reser-
voir pressure soon causes some of the gas held in solution to be
released as discrete gas bubbles in the pore spaces of the reser-
voir rock (Fig. 24-1). At quite low gas saturations (2 to 5 per-
cent of the pore space) these gas bubbles will combine to form
continuous gas flow channels into the production wells (Fig.
24-2). These gas channels inhibit the flow of oil while allowing
easy paths for gas flow. This results in rapidly rising gas-oil
ratios when primary production is continued at pressures below
the bubble point pressure.
Without either fluid injection or an active natural water-
drive, oil recovery is usually restricted to a range of 5 to 20
percent of the oil originally in place by the time the reservoir
pressure—and consequently, the oil production—falls to the
point at which further production is not economically feasible.
The oil remaining in the reservoir at this time is generally well
dispersed, but the reservoir contains a network of gas channels
which have a high flow capacity even though their volume may be
small.
 en
top ' W ° · .·0;-. ■ · ^F ô «

Figure 24-1.--Gas evolving from solution in porous medium

400

■H Y ,

'>'Λ d
Γ ?**v ..î■/ r > %Y^ ;% ,w% h-W:.' :"■■■*-
y;:
Υί Yl Ô - -^f". -s- ■■ .,,, -.:

" £: ; Υ ^ ^Υ? ' ΥΥ, |

Υ^:# ::J: ' ^ Λ «Y1

: ; : Ä* : ; ;' ; i ? :;Υ«γγγ|

Mm ':ff:ffrf
' ir\A

^Îw V ■' ''''*Siii' ;:* ^ Y Y ^ I W " " ~ , Α Τ | β > Λ if:-^Si:*s^-^-f^ji

Ê YNf, ^

Figure 24-2.—Gas-flow channels in an oil-filled matrix

 401

OIL DISPLACEMENT BY WATER OR GAS

Waterflooding has long been the major secondary-recovery

method. As a consequence, the advantages and disadvantages are
better known than those for other displacing fluids. Water
(treated to remove possible plugging materials) is injected into
the oil-bearing part of the reservoir to force oil toward the
production wells. Water, because of its nearly incompressible
nature, can raise the reservoir pressure quickly. As water in-
vades the oil- and gas-bearing regions it typically displaces
more than half of the oil it encounters. This oil, being pushed
by the water, refills the gas channels either by causing gas flow
or by dissolving the gas at the higher pressure. As soon as the
gas channels have been refilled around a production well, the oil
production rate will rise. Most waterfloods are designed so that
increased oil production in older wells occurs within a period of
6 months to a year. As mentioned above, water is relatively ef-
ficient at displacing oil, typically leaving only about one-
third of the reservoir pore space still containing oil that is
widely dispersed as individual droplets (Fig. 24-3). If water
could be made to invade all of the reservoir and if all of the
oil displaced by the water could be produced, the residual oil
after waterflood would be less than half of the oil originally in
place.
The injection of gas as a secondary recovery fluid has not
been used as often—or as successfully—as has water injection.
In general, gas is not as efficient as water unless reservoir
conditions are such that the gas and reservoir oil are completely
miscible. Miscibility between gas and oil requires relatively
high reservoir pressure and oil gravities, which makes the ma-
jority of oil reservoirs unsuitable for this type of displacement.
In the absence of miscibility between the injected gas and the
reservoir oil, the residual oil left in the invaded region is
greater than that left by water. Of the oil being produced in
the United States by secondary recovery, less than 10 percent
comes from gas injection [1].
402

A, 4 "* H.

Figure 24-3.—Residual oil after a water flood

 403

SECONDARY RECOVERY EFFICIENCIES

The ability of the injected fluid to displace oil from the
invaded portion of the reservoir is called "displacement effi-
ciency." It can be expressed as the fraction of the oil in place
which is replaced by the injected fluid. This is most commonly
expressed by the change in fluid saturations before and after the
displacement. For example, in a waterflood:
Displacement efficiency
J (E^) = 1 - S -S -S
^ D cw or gr
In a miscible-type gas drive, where there is no residual oil left,
the displacement efficiency would be:
E D. = 1 - S cw
Because the injected fluid does not reach all parts of a
reservoir, the total recovery efficiency will be the displacement
efficiency multiplied by the fraction of the reservoir volume ac-
tually invaded by the water. This fractional invaded volume is
called the reservoir conformance factor, and is affected by two
major factors: the pattern sweep efficiency resulting from the
geometric arrangement of the wells and the modifying effects of
reservoir heterogeneities.
Pattern sweep efficiencies of less than one result from the
unequal path lengths between injection and production wells.
Figure 24-4 shows one element of a five-spot injection pattern in
which each injection well is centered between four producers.
The different flow paths are illlustrated by the dashed lines.
Because the longest flow paths are about 50 percent longer than
the shortest ones, the leading edge of the injected fluid will
reach a production well first along the shortest path. Thus, the
injected fluid front at this time would be in the position shown
by the solid line in Fig. 24-4. The pattern sweep efficiency
shown would be given by the ratio of the area inside the solid
line (the swept or invaded area) to the area of the entire pat-
tern element. Two things should be noted. First, the sweep ef-
ficiency is not a constant quantity; it increases linearly with
cumulative injected volumes, up to the time of breakthrough, and
it continues to increase, but more slowly, while the oil produc-
tion rates decrease. Second, the sweep efficiency for any pat-
tern is affected by the ratio of the fluid permeabilities and
404

LEGEND

• INJECTION WELL

O PRODUCTION WELL

ELEMENT LIMIT

FLOOD FRONT

FLOW LINE

F i g u r e 2 4 - 4 . - - F l u i d movement i n a f i v e - s p o t element
 405

viscosities. The specific parameter is the mobility ratio and it

is defined as:
(k/μ) . . , ., ,-., . .
M - injected fluid
7
reservoir fluid
The dependence of pattern sweep efficiency on injected volumes
and on mobility ratio is illustrated in Fig. 24-5.
If pattern sweep efficiencies were the only factor affecting
reservoir conformance, the oil recovery at any time during the
flood could be found by using:

N = E x E^ x reservoir fluid volume/B

p s D ' o
The injected fluid volume necessary to reach this recovery would
be (for a waterflood):

W. = V. -, x E^ x reservoir fluid volume/B

l id D ' w
Since the oil production tapers off even though the injection
rate is maintained as a constant, the flood project will end when
the value of the oil production falls below the operational cost.
The second major factor in reservoir conformance is the ad-
verse effect of permeability heterogeneity. Flow paths between
injection and production wells which have different permeabil-
ities will cause faster flow through the higher permeability
path. The most common—and the most harmful—type of reservoir
heterogeneity is horizontal layering or stratification of the
reservoir rock. These horizontal layers often have quite dif-
ferent permeabilities even though they lie close together in the
same producing formation. To understand their adverse effect on
reservoir conformance, and thus on oil production, consider a
reservoir consisting of only two layers having equal volumes and
displacement efficiencies but having permeabilities that differ
by a factor of two. Roughly two-thirds of the injected fluid
would move into the higher permeability layer while one-third
would invade the other layer. Thus, break-through in the higher
permeability layer would occur with the other layer only half-
way to this recovery. The high permeability layer would be cycl-
ing injected fluid while the other layer produces oil. For such
a reservoir, having the pattern sweep efficiency shown by the
M = 1 curve of Fig. 24-5, the oil recovery history of the
406

M =0.5 M =1

>-

C/)

DIMENSIONLESS VOLUMES INJECTED - Vid

Figure 24-5.—Pattern sweep efficiencies

in a five-spot pattern
 407

two-layered reservoir compared to what it would have been if it

were homogeneous is shown in Fig. 24-6. It is obvious that the
two-layered systems will become uneconomic to continue in opera-
tion at a lower oil recovery.
A typical oil reservoir is composed of many such strata and
their permeabilities often differ by orders of magnitude. Be-
cause it has been found impractical to isolate these strata from
each other by selective well completion techniques, the hetero-
geneities are responsible for substantially lowered oil recover-
ies in many fluid injection projects.
As in pattern sweep efficiency, the effects of permeability
heterogeneities are modified by the fluid mobility ratio. Mobil-
ity ratios greater than one increase the adverse effects of strat-
ification while mobility ratios less than one decrease these
effects. Therefore, a waterflood is usually less affected by
stratification than is a gas drive, and the injection of viscous
water can decrease these adverse effects even further.
There are several published methods for estimating the ef-
fect of stratification in secondary recovery projects [2, 3, 4 ] .
All of these treat the total reservoir as if each layer were in-
dependent of the others, except for common completion at the well
bores. Such estimates are reasonable for most secondary recovery
projects and probably equally as precise as the knowledge of the
degree of permeability stratification. Figure 24-7 shows an ex-
ample of the effect of stratification on the expected oil recov-
ery, as calculated by the method presented in reference 2.

CONCLUSIONS
Waterflooding has been and probably will remain the prin-
cipal secondary recovery method, because of greater efficiency
and better economics than gas injection. While the displacement
efficiency of water is around 0.5, the actual recovery efficiency
will be lower because of reservoir conformance effects. Although
many feel that a waterflood will recover an additional amount of
oil equal to that already produced by primary, a better figure is
that successful waterfloods, plus the preceding primary
408

HOMOGENEOUS

TWO EQUAL VOLUME LAYERS

WATER INJECTED - W.

Figure 24-6.—Effect of two s t r a t a on o i l recovery

 409

HOMOGENEOUS

10 EQUAL VOLUME STRATA

/

k 10k
MAX MIN
LOG NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

HATER INJECTED - W

Figure 24-7.—Effect of multiple s t r a t a on o i l recovery

410

production, will usually recover between 40 and 60 percent of

the oil originally in place in the reservoir.
The oil left in the reservoir after waterflooding will be
distributed in two groups. About half will be left as isolated
residual oil droplets in the water-flushed portion of the reser-
voir. The remainder will be collected in those reservoir areas
where the water does not go because of reservoir conformances.

REFERENCES

[1] Federal Energy Administration, The Potential and Economics

of Enhanced Oil Recovery, Contract No. CO-03-50222-000,
Lewin and Associates, Inc., Washington, D.C., 1976.
[2] Caudle, B. H., Predicting the Performance of Injection Oper-
ations in Stratified or Pseudo-Stratified Formations,
Journal of Petroleum Technology, 19, (1966).
[3] Stiles, W. E., Use of Permeability Distribution in Water
Flood Calculations, Transactions AIME, 186, 9, (1949).
[4] Dykstra, H., and R. L. Parsons, The Prediction of Oil Re-
covery by Water Flood, in Secondary Recovery of Oil in
the United States, 2nd ed., API, New York, 1950.