Deep Reading Technology Integrated with Inflow Control Devices to Improve Sweep Efficiency in Horizontal Waterfloods

Abstract

Premature breakthrough and low sweep efficiency during waterfloods result from heterogeneity in the permeability field in a reservoir. Production wells with inflow control valves/inflow control devices (ICVs/ICDs) have the ability to reduce the water-oil ratio by shutting in flow ports with high water cut. Subsequently, this technology has been limited to a response based on detection of water breakthrough at production wells. Deep reading technologies have been reported to be successful in detecting the approaching waterfront before its breakthrough. The objective of this study is to investigate if the technology for early front detection combined with ICVs/ICDs can improve sweep efficiency in horizontal waterfloods. In this study, a synthetic horizontal well pair model is built using a black oil reservoir simulator to study performance of waterflooding in a single layer heterogeneous oil reservoir and to understand the value of information obtained from deep reading technology to control ICVs/ICDs for optimizing waterfloods. The simulation results show that using ICVs/ICDs at the horizontal production well significantly improves sweep efficiency and reduces water production. Early detection of waterfront with deep reading technologies provides incremental oil recovery. An optimum location for waterfront detection exists between the injector and the producer to improve oil production with specified injection and production constraints. Deep reading technologies may also provide valuable information about the mobility field between the well pair to reduce uncertainty in heterogeneity, which can be used to update the geological model for better history matching and forecasting production.

A new method to calculate sweep efficiency of horizontal wells in heterogeneous reservoir

“…It indicates that the "section interference" is exacerbated by water cut. The excessively increasing horizontal well length can increase the risk of limiting sweep efficiency (Onur Balan et al 2016;Mozaffari et al 2017). The following method must be present to find a balance between the well length and sweep efficiency.…”