Bhagyam ASP Pilot: Successful Formulation Development to Pilot Design and Planning

Abstract

Abstract The paper discusses the alkaline surfactant polymer (ASP) flood pilot design including formulation development, pilot area selection, well and pattern type, slug size and sequence, slug viscosity etc for the Bhagyam field. It also discusses the various lab, well and reservoir surveillance techniques planned for the baseline, ASP flood monitoring, residual oil saturation and incremental recovery estimates from the pilot. The Bhagyam is an onshore field in the Rajasthan state of western India and is part of Mangala-Bhagya m- Aishwariya (MBA) development in the Barmer basin. The main producing unit is Fatehgarh multi -storied fluvial sand stone. Reservoir quality is excellent with permeability in the range of 1 to 10 Darcy and porosity in the range of 25-30%. The crude oil is moderately viscous (15 to 500 cP) and highly active with TAN (total acid number) value of ~2 mgKOH/gm. All the reservoir and fluid properties together with low salinity (5000 ppm) and moderate temperature (54 degC) makes it an ideal candidate for polymer and ASP EOR methods. The field has been developed with downdip water injection and post successful evaluation of long term polymer injectivity test, it is currently under full-field polymer flood implementation. The details of polymer flood injectivity and full-field expansion plans are discussed by Sharma et. al. 2016 and Shankar et. al. 2018. EOR assessment has been part of the field development planning process from start. Multiple phase behaviour studies and corefloods have been conducted to screen the surfactant and generate necessary parameters for the simulation studies. The formulation consists of combination of sulfate and sulfonate based surfactants. The focus of the pilot area selection has been to utilize the existing well s to maximum possible extent, reduce the geological uncertainty and minimize the interference from ongoing activity in the field. A normal 4 spot pilot with ~150m spacing has been selected together with two observation well for time lapse saturation monitoring and one coring well towards end of pilot for saturation determination. Dynamic models have been used to design slug size, sequence, viscosity and estimate incremental oil potential. Multiple tracer surveys together with distributed pressure measurements and interference tests are planned to establish connectivity and calibrate model. Initial estimates of pilot incremental oil recovery is in the range of 15-25% of stock tank oil intial in-place (STOIIP) over the polymer flood. Overall pilot design aims at collecting all the necessary data for reducing uncertainty for full-field expansion in a short time frame.