An Experimental Water-flood in a California Oil Field

Abstract

A study of the Chapman zone in the Richfield field, Orange County, California, indicates that the quantity of oil recovered by present methods will be only asmall portion of the oil originally in place. Since the volume of residual oilis believed to be of large magnitude, an experimental water-flooding operationhas been initiated in order to determine whether water-flooding offers promiseas an economical method of recovering some of this residual oil. A singleinjection well was drilled between old producing wells, and a water-treatingplant using alum flocculation and chlorination was designed and built. Waterhas been injected into the input well for six months at rates in excess of 100bbl. per day. Production from one of the neighboring wells has increasedmaterially, the oil production having risen from. 7 to 30 bbl. and the waterfrom I to 40 bbl. per day. While definite conclusions regarding the economic success of water-flooding inthe Chapman zone are not justified at this time, it has been demonstrated thatwater can be injected into the zone on a sustained basis and that this waterwill displace appreciable quantities of oil from the sand. Introduction As a result of an investigation of subsurface conditions in the Chapman zone ofthe Richfield field, it was concluded that ultimate oil recovery from this zonewould probably be low and that natural water encroachment was so localized asto be of little importance from a recovery stand-point. Furthermore, it wasfound that in many portions of the zone the wells were approaching anunprofitable level of production. When these data were presented to themanagement of the Union Oil Co., their reaction was that an attempt should bemade to develop methods of recovering at least a portion of the large quantityof oil remaining in this zone. After some investigation, it was decided that water-flooding offered the mostlikely means of accomplishing this end, but reservoir conditions in the Chapmanzone differ so widely from those encountered in any of the flooding projectsdescribed in the literature that it was difficult to evaluate the probabilityof success. Despite encouraging results from laboratory tests, it was not evencertain that water would displace an appreciable volume of oil from the Chapmansand under reservoir conditions. Therefore, it was decided to initiate asmall-scale project, for two purposes: first, to determine whether water woulddisplace oil from the Chapman sand and, second, to obtain information andexperience for future operations? if water-flooding appeared to be a promisingmethod of secondary recovery. T.P. 1816

Online Quality Measurements of Total Suspended Solids for Offshore Reinjection: A Review Study

“…One way of increasing the recovery cost ratio is by focusing on the IW, which has been known for several decades to play a massive role in improving the recovery process [16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. Back in 1880, the first waterflooding was executed at Oil Creek, PA (USA), but faced a lot of new and unforeseen issues at that time [17].…”

“…First, in the late 1930s, the oil and gas industry rediscovered waterflooding as a potential method in the profitable restoration of old abandoned areas in Bradford and Allegany fields in the northern part of Pennsylvania and the southern part of New York State [18]. The interests in IW projects steadily increased until the late 1940s-early 1950s-where the progress was immensely accelerated, leading to the expertise of the IWT processes that exist today [16,[19][20][21][22]. Already in the early years of waterflooding installations in the 1940s, they observed that the quality of the IW profoundly affects the recovery process [19,20].…”

“…The interests in IW projects steadily increased until the late 1940s-early 1950s-where the progress was immensely accelerated, leading to the expertise of the IWT processes that exist today [16,[19][20][21][22]. Already in the early years of waterflooding installations in the 1940s, they observed that the quality of the IW profoundly affects the recovery process [19,20]. Water quality is usually discussed in terms of plugging tendency, which further complicates the process [25,26].…”