Physicochemical Modeling of Barium and Sulfate Transport in Porous Media and Its Application in Seawater-Breakthrough Monitoring

Abstract

Summary Seawater injection is widely used to improve oil recovery in offshore oil reservoirs. However, injecting seawater into reservoirs can cause many flow-assurance issues, such as scaling and reservoir souring, which are strongly related to the percentage of seawater breakthrough. Thermodynamic models have been developed to evaluate the effects of barite deposition on oil production, but the reservoir stripping effect has not been fully considered. In this study, a new model that incorporates both chemical reaction (barium and sulfate reaction) and physical reactions (ion adsorption/desorption) is developed to investigate the in-situ barite-deposition process. To the best of our knowledge, for the first time, ion adsorption/desorption is integrated by coupling the adsorption/desorption isotherm to the reservoir simulator. The barium and sulfate chemical reaction is modeled by incorporating the solubility product constant into the model. The model accuracy is verified through convergence rate tests and comparison with the coreflood experimental results. The simulation results of both barium and sulfate concentration profiles are greatly improved by integrating the ion adsorption/desorption process. The new physicochemical model is further used to investigate barite deposition under various scenarios. Simulation results indicate that most barite deposits are in the deep reservoir for the areal model. Barite that deposits in the reservoir before seawater breakthrough accounts for 45% of total barite deposition and the barite deposited during the seawater-breakthrough period makes up 54%, while the deposition during the tailing period, where the seawater fraction is larger than 95%, is negligible. For a homogeneous reservoir, the barite-deposition period at the near-wellbore area of the producer is between 30% and 65% of the seawater-breakthrough percentage, and heterogeneity leads to a broader deposition period. For vertical heterogeneous reservoirs, a considerable amount of barite forms in the wellbore, which accounts for 17% of total barite deposition. Based on the accurate simulation of barium and sulfate transport in the reservoir, barium and sulfate concentration profiles can be used to determine the seawater-breakthrough percentage and help optimize production operations that aim to mitigate flow assurance issues.