Improving Recovery Factor in Campos Basin

Abstract

This paper describes recent efforts into continually increasing the recovery factors in the Campos Basin reservoirs, which translate in significant investments foreseen for the next years to increase the production and recovery of the Basin. Some strategic efforts comprise measurement and critical analysis of current recovery factor, evaluation of recovery potential per reservoir and the creation of initiatives focused on the main technical requisites that would allow higher recoveries. Campos Basin complexity, along with the maturity of the existing infrastructure, brings new challenges to the continuity of production. Among those challenges are the capacity to process large amounts of produced water and the demand for revitalization of production facilities, including topside, subsea and new wells. Despite excellent results achieved in pre-salt reservoirs in Santos Basin in the recent years, Campos Basin remains an important province for Brazil's oil production. Still responding for 40% of the current production of oil in Brazil, the basin presents a promising future in the next decades. Revitalization projects, development of recent pre-salt discoveries and concession contract extensions are among the ongoing efforts towards Campos Basin renewal. Along with operations and complementary projects, a strategic program called RF Ambition was set up in 2019, aiming to: deepen the diagnosis of the recovery factor per reservoir;establish recovery targets and ambitions for each reservoir;identify initiatives to boost recovery;provide the technical support to deploy the projects with potential to allow achieving the targets and ambitions in Brazilian fields. An accurate diagnosis of the basin's recovery factor relies on a careful and thorough detailing of its reservoirs. Campos Basin has hundreds of production zones with different lithologies, in place volumes, types of fluids, geological complexities and water depth. Data analysis, evaluation and comparison to analytical estimates and international benchmarks can minimize the risk of reaching superficial or even incorrect conclusions. The remaining potential of the reservoirs, approached by the identification of opportunities, translates into mid- and long-term supplementary projects to exploit undeveloped zones and optimize the recovery of the reservoirs, thus increasing overall recovery of the fields in Campos Basin. The aggregated contribution of these new opportunities integrates an ambitious target of recovery factor for the basin. There are significant opportunities to increase Campos Basin's recovery factor and, to achieve the forecasted targets, technical and economic challenges must be overcome with the contributions of all agents involved in the upstream chain.