Using Streamline-Derived Injection Efficiencies for Improved Waterflood Management

Abstract

Summary This paper describes a novel approach to predict injection- and production-well rate targets for improved management of water-floods. The methodology centers on the unique ability of streamlines to define dynamic well allocation factors (WAFs) between injection and production wells. Streamlines allow well allocation factors to be broken down additionally into phase rates at either end of each injector/producer pair. Armed with these unique data, it is possible to define the injection efficiency (IE) for each injector and for injector/producer pairs in a simulation model. The IE quantifies how much oil can be recovered at a producing well for every unit of water injected by an offset injector connected to it. Because WAFs are derived directly from streamlines, the data reflect all the complexities impacting the dynamic behavior of the reservoir model, including the spatial permeability and porosity distributions, fault locations, the underlying computational grid, relative permeability data, pressure/volume/temperature (PVT) properties, and most importantly, historical well rates. The possibility to define IEs through streamline simulation stands in contrast to the ad hoc definition of geometric WAFs and simple surveillance methods used by many practicing reservoir engineers today. Once IEs are known, improved waterflood management can be implemented by reallocating injection water from low-efficiency to high-efficiency injectors. Even in the case in which water cannot be reallocated because of local surface-facility constraints, knowing IEs on an injector/producer pair allows the setting of target rates to maintain oil production while reducing water production. We demonstrate this methodology by first introducing the concept of IEs, then use a small reservoir as an example application.