Polymer Injection Pilots in Bhagyam Oil Field and Full Field Polymer Development Planning

Shankar, V. Gouri; Jain, Shakti; Mishra, Alok; Seth, Saurav; Rautela, Chandra Mohan S.; Jha, Bhawesh Chandra

doi:10.2118/190472-ms

Cited by 6 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 1 publication

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“…Despite large and numerous projects overseas, polymer flooding remains a relatively new tool in the shed of Russian oil companies with very few published cases [ 5 , 6 ] with a scale comparable to what has been implemented in Canada [ 7 ], Argentina [ 8 , 9 , 10 ] or India [ 11 , 12 , 13 ], to name but a few. Moreover, for East-Messoyakhskoe, the fact that the field is located in subarctic conditions makes the development of EOR techniques even more challenging.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Polymer Retention Determination in Porous Media for Polymer Flooding in Unconsolidated Reservoir

Ilyasov¹,

Koltsov

Golub³

et al. 2021

Polymers

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Polymer flooding is a well-established technique aimed at improved recovery factors from oilfields. Among the important parameters affecting the feasibility of a large deployment, polymer retention is one of the most critical since it directly impacts the oil bank delay and therefore the final economics of the project. This paper describes the work performed for the East-Messoyakhskoe oilfield located in Northern Siberia (Russia). A literature review was first performed to select the most appropriate methodology to assess polymer retention in unconsolidated cores at residual oil saturation. 4 polyacrylamide polymers were selected with molecular weights between 7 and 18 M Da and sulfonated monomer (ATBS) content between 0 and 5% molar. An improved 2-fronts dynamic retention method along with total organic carbon—total nitrogen analyzers were used for concentration measurement. Retention values vary between 93 and 444 The sentence could be rephrased μg/g, with the lowest given by the polymers containing ATBS, corroborating other publications on the topic. This paper also summarizes the main learnings gathered during the adaptation of laboratory procedures and paves the way for a faster and more efficient retention estimation for unconsolidated reservoirs.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Polymer Retention Determination in Porous Media for Polymer Flooding in Unconsolidated Reservoir

Ilyasov¹,

Koltsov

Golub³

et al. 2021

Polymers

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Bhagyam ASP Pilot: Successful Formulation Development to Pilot Design and Planning

Jain

Prasad

Pandey

et al. 2020

Day 2 Tue, September 01, 2020

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The paper discusses the alkaline surfactant polymer (ASP) flood pilot design including formulation development, pilot area selection, well and pattern type, slug size and sequence, slug viscosity etc for the Bhagyam field. It also discusses the various lab, well and reservoir surveillance techniques planned for the baseline, ASP flood monitoring, residual oil saturation and incremental recovery estimates from the pilot. The Bhagyam is an onshore field in the Rajasthan state of western India and is part of Mangala-Bhagya m- Aishwariya (MBA) development in the Barmer basin. The main producing unit is Fatehgarh multi -storied fluvial sand stone. Reservoir quality is excellent with permeability in the range of 1 to 10 Darcy and porosity in the range of 25-30%. The crude oil is moderately viscous (15 to 500 cP) and highly active with TAN (total acid number) value of ~2 mgKOH/gm. All the reservoir and fluid properties together with low salinity (5000 ppm) and moderate temperature (54 degC) makes it an ideal candidate for polymer and ASP EOR methods. The field has been developed with downdip water injection and post successful evaluation of long term polymer injectivity test, it is currently under full-field polymer flood implementation. The details of polymer flood injectivity and full-field expansion plans are discussed by Sharma et. al. 2016 and Shankar et. al. 2018. EOR assessment has been part of the field development planning process from start. Multiple phase behaviour studies and corefloods have been conducted to screen the surfactant and generate necessary parameters for the simulation studies. The formulation consists of combination of sulfate and sulfonate based surfactants. The focus of the pilot area selection has been to utilize the existing well s to maximum possible extent, reduce the geological uncertainty and minimize the interference from ongoing activity in the field. A normal 4 spot pilot with ~150m spacing has been selected together with two observation well for time lapse saturation monitoring and one coring well towards end of pilot for saturation determination. Dynamic models have been used to design slug size, sequence, viscosity and estimate incremental oil potential. Multiple tracer surveys together with distributed pressure measurements and interference tests are planned to establish connectivity and calibrate model. Initial estimates of pilot incremental oil recovery is in the range of 15-25% of stock tank oil intial in-place (STOIIP) over the polymer flood. Overall pilot design aims at collecting all the necessary data for reducing uncertainty for full-field expansion in a short time frame.

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Grain-Scale Modeling of Polymer-driven Fracture Initiation and Wellbore Injectivity

Sun

Espinoza

et al. 2020

Day 2 Tue, September 01, 2020

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Reservoir simulators often predict poor injectivity in polymer enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects because of the high polymer viscosity, which is a deterrent for the project. However, field studies have shown much higher injectivity than predicted by the models. The objective of this work is to perform grain-scale, coupled fluid dynamics and geomechanics modeling to predict the injectivity of viscous, non-Newtonian polymers in wellbores. Fluid-rock interactions are modeled by coupling computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and the discrete element method (DEM). Fluid flow is determined using an open-source CFD software that solves the volume-averaged Navier-Stokes equation using the finite volume method on Eulerian grids. Grain-scale geomechanics (DEM) is used to explicitly solve the particle trajectories in a Lagrangian reference system. The simulation results confirm the hypothesis of fracture initiation and sand failure near the injector. The results show that the polymer-driven fracture initiation is associated with sand shear failure, while the fracture geometry is the result of the localization of sand shear failure and fluidization of unconsolidated sand at the fracture tip. The injection of a viscous fluid can create fractures in the direction perpendicular to the applied minimum principal stress. The presence of fractures increases the injectivity. The peak injection pressure is more than 3 times greater than the applied minimum principal stress. The viscosity increase of polymers promotes the initiation of fractures and results in a greater fracture aperture. The injection of polymer can promote the initiation of fractures, and therefore, increase the polymer injectivity. This work, for the first time, uses a grain-scale model to predict polymer-driven fracture initiation and demonstrates the improved injectivity observed in the field.

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Polymer Injection Pilots in Bhagyam Oil Field and Full Field Polymer Development Planning

Cited by 6 publications

References 1 publication

Polymer Retention Determination in Porous Media for Polymer Flooding in Unconsolidated Reservoir

Polymer Retention Determination in Porous Media for Polymer Flooding in Unconsolidated Reservoir

Bhagyam ASP Pilot: Successful Formulation Development to Pilot Design and Planning

Grain-Scale Modeling of Polymer-driven Fracture Initiation and Wellbore Injectivity

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