Understanding Mauddud Waterflood Performance in a Heterogeneous Carbonate Reservoir with Surveillance Data and Ensemble of Analytical Tools

Abstract

The Bahrain Oil Field was the first oil discovery in the Gulf Region in 1932 and is now in a mature stage of development. Crestal gas injection in the oil bearing, under saturated, layered and heavily faulted carbonate Mauddud reservoir has continued to be the dominant drive mechanism since 1938. Thirty eight 40 acre 5-spot waterflood patterns were implemented from 2011 to 2012. These patterns were located in both the South East and North West part of the Mauddud reservoir with a maximum injection rate of 80,000 bbl/day. With less than 10% PV water injected as of December 2012, premature water breakthrough was observed in most of the producers. Rapid water breakthrough in Mauddud A (Ba) is attributed to presence of high permeability vugs and layers resulting in water cycling and poor sweep in the matrix leaving bypassed oil. Following recommendations from the 2013 partner Peer Assist, the South East and North West waterfloods have been converted from pattern to peripheral with downdip wells providing water injection. Peripheral re-alignment has arrested the production decline, reduced water cut and stabilized production. Surveillance data such as bottomhole pressure data, production logs, reservoir saturation logs, temperature logs and tracer data form the basis of understanding waterflood performance. Additionally, an array of analytical tools were used for diagnosis and analysis. Amongst the diagnostic tools, the Y- function helped to understand water cycling and sweep; the modified-Hall plot assisted in understanding the high-permeability channel or lack thereof and the water-oil-ratio (WOR) provided the clue on fluid displacement. Additional plots such as the "X" plot, decline curve, Cobb plot, pore volume injected vs. recovery, Jordan plot, and Stagg's plot were generated to gain insight on the waterflood. Based on the waterflood analysis, a field study was initiated in December 2016 by shutting more than 80% of water injection followed by complete shut-in in September 2017. The purpose was to reduce the water cut, improve production taking advantage of gravity drainage effect of gas injectors located up dip of waterflood areas. The implementation of water injection shut-in is still ongoing in the Bahrain Field and pressure/production performance is being closely monitored. Improved production performance is observed following water injection shut-in. This study underscores the importance of modern analytical tools to diagnose and analyze waterflood performance. This understanding also paves the way for much improved learning to take appropriate actions and help devise long-term reservoir management strategy.

Analysis of Interwell Connectivity of Tracer Monitoring in Carbonate Fracture-Vuggy Reservoir: Taking T-Well Group of Tahe Oilfield as an Example

“…There have been many cases of interwell tracer monitoring used in oil fields [29][30][31][32][33]. The research of tracer monitoring used in fractured carbonate reservoirs generally prefers chemicals [34] or combines dynamic surveillance data with new analytical tools [35,36]. However, the study of tracer interwell monitoring also has certain limitations.…”