Water Saturation Modeling in Khafji Carbonate Reservoir

Abstract

Abstract Within an oil reservoir the water saturation height functions can vary strongly, especially for carbonate rocks. These variations can be significant and difficult to estimate. The amount of hydrocarbons in place, the prediction of recoverable oil, the recovery process and the future plans of developing such reservoirs depend on many factors, one of which is the accurate modeling of water saturation. The Khafji carbonate reservoir is a heterogeneous reservoir with two different types of oil: light oil in the top of the reservoir and heavy oil in the bottom of the reservoir. The challenge of water saturation modeling is primarily in the heavy oil zone, where conventional height function techniques produces poor match against measured water saturation logs. Alternative methods were utilized in order to obtain good match in both light oil and heavy oil columns. A workflow has been created in order to overcome these challenges. Laboratory derived capillary pressure curves were used to establish water saturation height relationships as a function of rock type (RT). Additionally, a Flow Zone Indicators (FZI) analysis was used as a basis for rock typing. Then a J-function derived from capillary pressure data for each rock type or hydraulic flow unit (HFU) was used to generate saturation height function for each RT. The generated saturation undergone via several iterations to match the large span of openhole electric water saturation logs above the free-water level (FWL). The saturation profile generated by this workflow shows a good match to the measured Sw electric logs, and the calculated fluid volumes are in agreement with company's approved reserves estimation.