Rospo Mare Integrated Reservoir Study Italy, Adriatic Sea: An Innovative Approach of Karst System Modeling and History Match

Abstract

Rospo Mare is a heavy oil fractured karstic carbonate reservoir producing since the 80's. Reservoir pressure is constant due to a strong aquifer tilted toward north east. The producing wells are systematically operated at critical rate to prevent water production (no water treatment installation). The paper is focused on the modeling of the fractures and the karst system in conjunction with an innovative history match approach used to match the forced anhydrous oil production and to represent the complex water position and behavior through time. As the main fracturing phase of Rospo Mare reservoir occurred before the karstification phase, the dissolution of the carbonates was guided by the existing fracture network. The karst system and the fracture network were modeled together thanks to a fracture model that includes several enlarged fracture sets and lineaments. The fracture modeling was also guided by the relative compactness of the matrix facies distribution. Because of limited data for fracture characterization, the dynamic characteristics of fractures, particularly the aperture of enlarged fractures, were fully considered as history match parameters. The history match approach consisted in using both the historical oil production and the prediction period to make sure that the wells were producing at their critical rate and ensure a realistic displacement of water at both field and well levels. This unusual strategy was necessary because of lack of data to constrain history match (no water and gas production, no pressure variation). Therefore the history match was performed by taking into account the prediction period through a do nothing case scenario. Based on the assumption of critical rate, a decline of the oil production rate is expected during the prediction period. This allowed assessing the vicinity of water at wells: both the rise of the water table and the coning effect at wells. The matched model successfully honors the water displacement and position at key wells including the last two side tracks drilled in 2012. The model allows a good representation of the reservoir physical behavior and provides a useful tool for piloting the field and assisting future decisions.

Darcy model with optimized permeability distribution (DMOPD) approach for simulating two-phase flow in karst reservoirs

“…Many paleokarstic oil and gas reservoirs and water aquifers can be found around the world. Some of the major examples are Hainaut carbonate and sulphate karstic aquifer (Licour 2014), Raspo Mare reservoir (Bellentani et al 2016;Gauchet and Corre 1996), gas reservoirs of Sinian (Zou 2013), Yarqon-Taninim aquifer (Dafny et al 2010), Buda thermal karst system (Albert et al 2015), a giant Middle Eastern oil field located offshore in the Arabian Gulf (Dabbouk et al 2002), Tahe oil reservoir in Tarim Basin in China (Li et al 2016;Peng et al 2009), Kharyaga field in Russia (Khvatova et al 2012), and a karstic reservoir in the Brazilian pre-salt field (Correia et al 2019).…”