Water flooding

Introduction

Waterflooding has long been proven as the simplest and the lowest cost approach to maintaining production and increasing oil recovery from an oil reservoir. However, these benefits may fall far short of the expectations unless the time-tested concepts and practices are clearly understood and judiciously implemented. These concepts and practices aim at process optimization -reducing production cost while minimizing waste and maximizing oil recovery and income. This course is light on theory but heavy on proven and successful practices. Published case histories of projects around the world are reviewed to provide an understanding of divergent points-of-view, what works where, what fails when, and why.

This training covers all elements of a waterflood project from A to Z - from source water selection to produced water disposal and everything in between. Participants are grouped into small multi-disciplinary teams. All classroom discussions and problem-solving sessions are handled in an asset-management team format. Simulation studies are done in class to evaluate basic waterflooding physics as well as to optimize the development of a hypothetical field.

Objectives

By the end of this course participants will learn how to:

• Distinguish rock characteristics and fluid properties that control the displacement of oil and thereby influence oil recovery
• Predict incremental oil recovery and develop production profile using required data and its sources
• Specify components of a well-designed waterflood plan
• Estimate injection water requirement, incremental oil production, and volumes of produced water
• Monitor waterflood performance and optimize oil recovery through new technology
• Use reservoir simulation to address basic recovery mechanisms and optimization

Target Audience

Reservoir, production, facilities, research and development, and operations engineers who are involved with some aspects of a new or existing waterflood project; geoscientists and professionals who want to get a better feel for the entire process of planning, development, management, and recovery optimization of a waterflood project

Reservoir Engineering Outline

The course covers the following topics:

• Why is water and/or gas injection needed?
• Reservoir characterization and aquifer influence
• Water-displacing-oil flood mechanisms
• Design aspects
• Recovery expectations and production forecast
• Production engineering aspects and performance indices
• Associated problems/risks and ways to minimize the impact
• Reservoir monitoring
• Optimization of oil recovery
• Review of case histories
• Oil recovery enhancement beyond waterflood