Investigation of Significance of Critical Components in Optimization of WAG Injection Processes under Uncertainty

Abstract

Abstract Water alternating gas (WAG) injection has been widely used for the last 50 years throughout the world. The typical improved oil recovery (IOR) potential for WAG injection compared with water injection is 5 to 10%. It was originally intended to improve sweep efficiency during gas flooding, with intermittent slugs of water and gas designed to follow the same route through the reservoir. Mechanisms in WAG injection include microscopic effects, particularly in cases where three-phase flow and hysteresis are important for the IOR effect. Injection of gas usually aids an ongoing waterflood, and finding technical and commercial methods to reduce gas costs would be useful. Water injection alone tends to sweep the lower parts of a reservoir, while gas injected alone sweeps more of the upper parts of a reservoir because of gravitational forces. Gas represents a large fraction of the total cost, making WAG injection an expensive method. Thus, optimizing WAG injection is not only crucial in terms of recovery but also economics, especially where gas is expensive and/or limited. In this study, the significance of key components in a WAG injection process on SPE's 5th Comparative Solution Project (CSP) is presented that models the WAG process through a pseudo-miscible formulation by means of coupling a full-physics reservoir simulator with commercial optimization and uncertainty software. The results are analyzed and presented in a comparative manner by means of tornado charts showing the significance of each decision and uncertainty variable.