SPE 74374

Abkatun's Gas Injection Reservoir Management Under Double Displacement Process

A.C. Rosales, PEMEX, M.A. Molina, PEMEX, and A.M.Saidi PEMEX Consultant

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Abstract
field sector will be u s d far tuning full field dual
Abkatun is a major offshore fractured-vuggy field porosity reservoir simulation studies.
located about 86Km Northeast from Dos Bocas of
Introduction
Mexico's Tabmw province. Discovered in 1980 It i s now known that gasoil residual saturation is
with original oil in-place of 5.2 billion STB. The
considerably lower than water-oil in porous media.
'Ad has been producing under water and expansion This is evident from both laboratory measured
,rive wtil recently when the m o i r pressure
residual oil saturation and when comparing oil
dropped below bubble point pressure of 178~gicrn~. recovery from reservoir produced essentially under
Well logs, core, and well test analysis as well as bottom water drive and oil recovery factor from
field's history of production and water ail contact reservoirs produced under gas gravity drainage. A
movement indicate that fracture-vug contributes few examples are brief1y given below:
about 20% of the oil in place. The present total oil
production is close to 2.1 billion STB and the final I-Zelton field discovered in the fifties by
oil production is estimated to be about 2.3 billion Exxon in Libya, is an Oolitic limestone
STB. The present average water production of 22 formation having two Darcies permeability,
producers is about 1 0 % with and upward trend. contains light oil and p r o d u d under bottom
Reservoir analysis indicates a matrix oil recovery of water drive. The rawvoir is fully invaded by
about 20%. This is in line with other fields having water since long time. This field, which was
similar matrix permeability and rock wettability and producing at a rate of 500 housand STB per
that produced under water drive condition for 45 day for many years, is now producing at rate
years. The oil recovery by water in these fields has about 1 5000 STB per day, with an estimated oil
a value close to 16% while the same formation recovery of 50 to 55 percent of the original oil
under gas double displacement has shown to have in place.
over 29 % recovery.
2- Ghawar field', the largest field in the world,
Plans have been made to carry out laboratory and discovered by Ararnm in the f iftits in Saudi
simulation studies to evaluate extra oil recovery by Arabia, is a limestone formation with
hydrocarbon, N2, and impure N2-air injection. Some permeability variation of one Darcy in the
-f the prerequisite were full compositional PVT
' ? AC. Resales. M.A M o l i . A.M.Saidl
northern part to about 100 md in the southem
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portion of the field. The field pressure i s
maintained at about 4000 psi pressure through
water injection at a rate of about 5 million
barrel per day. Water injection is carefuIly
designed to act as bottom drive. The =timated
oil recovery from this prolific field with
excellent permeability is also about 50 to 55%.
3- Intaar field2 discovered by Occidental in the
sixties in Libya. This is a limestone formatian
having a permeability of about 200 md
containing light oil with natural bottom water
drive. Since 1980 gas was injected into this
field at a rate of 100 million SCF par day. Oil
recovery h m water invaded and gas invade
zones of this field is 50-55 percent from the
water invaded zone and 70 to 75 percent from
gas invaded zone. That is, the oil recovery by
gas is between IS to 25 percent higher than that
by water.
4- Lakeview field' discovered in I910 and set
to production in 1934 located in California.
This is a stratifigrafic sandstone reservoir
having a permeability of a b u t two Darcies.
- This fidd is producing under gravity drainage
with no fluid injection and no bottom water
drive. The reservoir pressure dropped from the
original ptaswe of about 1600 psi to about 200
psi, with a recovery factor of about 75%.
5- Experiments made on a 13 R tall
unhomogeneous sand pack saturated with
brine4, d i s p l a d by air at gravity drainage rate,
produced over 75% of the brine leaving a
threshold height of about 2ft.
The above mentioned cases, which are only few
examples of many cases, are clearly showing that
gas is able to displace both water and ail far better
than water could displace oil under gravity
drainage-imbibition conditions, table 1,
EOR Principles in Fractured Resewoh
Oil in fractured reservoir is located into two distinct
media, known as fracture and matrix. The presence
of vug-micro fracture in fractured reservoirs does
not really add a new dimension to the above more
classical reservoirs. In this case if vugs are
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connected to the main fracture system it would be
74374
consider as part of fracture system, and if it were
connected through matrix, via micro pores, it would
be considered as part of matrix rock.
Macroscopic displacement improvement in medium
to well fractured reservoir is not the main issue in
such reservoirs. It is the improvement of
microscopic displacement efficiently in matrix rock
that would provide a higher oil recovery from
fractured reservoirs. The simplest and the loss
costly process among different methods is through
gas injection. This is because gas displaces oil with
higher dispjacement efficiency than water, if the
matrix bIock height i s sufficiently large or there is
sufficient capillary continuity along the matrix
blocks. The higher reservoir pressure helps this
process more significantly.
There would be no need to discuss oil recovery
from fiactursvug system, since displacement
efficiency in such a system is nearly similar by
eitha gas or water. The key is then how the oil
recovery from matrix system could be improved.
The main criteria for increasing oil recovery h m
the matrix rocks is to reduce the interfacial tension
between the injection fluid and reservoir oil while
swelling oil as against oil shrinkage. Miscible
displacement in fractured reservoir is possible if and
only if injection fluid has first contact miscibility
with oil. This is because as soon as a miscible front
develops in a matrix block, for example in multi-
contact vaporizing gas drive case, the viscosity of
the miscible front is much smaller than the vismsity
of oil ahead of front. Under such condition the low
viscosity front flows out laterally rather than
vertically. This causes to lose the miscible front. For
relatively low-pressure reservoirs, miscible process
is possible if it could afford to inject 0.8 PV CrC6
for 20 years to recover 90% of the oil. As may be
noted such process is not at ail feasible.
Similarly surfactant injection to reduce the
interfacial tension between water and oil would not
be feasible, since it requires large volume of
expensive additives.
Another required criteria for such study is to have a
good knowledge of the pment fluid displacement
efficiency of the memoir under investigation. For
this, we need to be sure that the block height used in
the studies are correctly estimated, and a mmct