SPE-177527-MS

The Design and Implementation of a Full Field Inter-Well Tracer Program

on a Giant UAE Carbonate Oil Field
D. Wang, A. B. Al-katheeri, S. M. Al-Nuimi, and A. Dey, Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Petroleum Operation

Copyright 2015, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference held in Abu Dhabi, UAE, 9 –12 November 2015.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
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Abstract
This paper reviews the design and implementation of a full field inter well tracer program of a giant
onshore oil field in Abu Dhabi. The field is under peripheral waterflooding in order to maintain reservoir
pressure and provide a mechanism to sweep the oil. However, the existence of the strike-slip fault planes
juxtaposed across the reservoirs added a variable to the complexity of the waterflood management. In
order to improve the understanding towards the reservoir heterogeneity and reduce the uncertainties
associated with major faults, a full field water tracer program which is possibly the largest in the Middle
East has been designed.
Based on streamline model, unique chemical tracers have been injected in twenty three water injectors
covering all the peripheral areas and dozens of associated offset producers across the field were selected
to monitor the tracer movement. The program have been designed carefully in terms of tracer selection
& compatibility test, chemical volume calculation, injection well and monitoring well selection, as well
as the devise of the comprehensive monitoring plan. Ultimately the results of this tracer program will be
used in combination with other reservoir surveillance tools to facilitate a better management of the
reservoir.
Interwell tracers technology is a valuable tool for reservoir management, however, reliable tracer data
can only be obtained through judicious design, implementation and monitoring. The preliminary results
from designing the tracer program include: 1) Twenty three water injectors were identified based on
streamline modeling for tracer injection and dozens of producers for monitoring. 2) Injected tracers were
selected based on the uniqueness, stability, detection limit and environmental friendliness, and compat-
ibility tests were done in advance between tracers and reservoir fluids. 3) Total dilution method was used
to calculate the quantity of tracers injected in each of the well. 4) A comprehensive monitoring program
was scheduled to capture the arriving of the tracer as well as to depict the entire tracer wave.
The presented full field water tracer program of a giant onshore oil field is possibly the largest in
Middle East, and the described designing of the program, encountered problems and best practice could
be of some use to those intended planning a tracer project.
Key words Inter-Well Tracer · Waterflooding · Reservoir Management
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Introduction
Interwell tracers technology is a well-established technique to estimate the velocities at which the injected
water is moving towards the producers by recording the breakthrough time, as well as a means to
determine the fluid pathways and verifies channels or barriers to flow by identifying the source of
produced water. All these information are crucial for the analysis of the performance of water flooding
systems and the interpretation of anomalies associated with reservoir heterogeneities. Understanding the
water injection behaviors helps to better manage reservoirs under water injection which results in
improving the ultimate recovery.
This paper reviewed the design and implementation of a full field inter well tracer program of a giant
oil field onshore Abu Dhabi. The field was subjected to peripheral waterflooding in order to maintain
reservoir pressure and provide a mechanism to sweep the oil. However, the existence of the strike-slip
fault planes juxtaposed across the reservoirs added a variable to the complexity of the waterflood
management. In order to improve the understanding towards the reservoir heterogeneity and reduce the
uncertainties associated with major faults, a full field water tracer program which is largest in UAE history
has been designed.
Based on streamline model, unique chemical tracers have been injected in twenty one water injectors
covering all the peripheral areas and dozens of associated offset producers across the field were selected
to monitor the tracer movement. The design of the program will be thoroughly explained in this paper in
terms of tracer selection and capability test, chemical volume calculation, injection well and monitoring
well selection based on streamline model, and the design of the comprehensive monitoring plan.
Ultimately the results of this tracer program will be used in combination with other reservoir surveillance
tools to facilitate a better management of the reservoir.

Background
The subject field is located in the onshore area of Abu Dhabi about 110 km to the Southeast of Abu Dhabi
Island. The field was discovered in 1965, with first production starting in 1973, and first water injection
in 1976. The main oil bearing zones are X, Y and Z. These zones are in communication through faults.
Each zone is bounded at the top and base by a dense argillaceous limestone and further subdivided by the
occurrence of stylolite-bearing dense intervals. Of these, Zone Y, subject of this study, contains over 2/3
of the field’s original oil in place.
Zone Y is an under-saturated, heterogeneous and highly stratified reservoir with an average porosity
of 30%. It is subdivided into five sub-zones. The Upper Y contains the higher permeability Zones in
excess of 700 mD, while the Lower Y has a lower permeability of about 10 mD. The current development
scheme, with selective injection and production under peripheral water injection, was implemented in
1982.
The existence of major faults in Zone Y resulted in splitting the reservoirs to 12 main sectors. Amongst
the major monitoring tools and techniques, tracer injection is one of the most important for monitoring the
effectiveness of a water flood project because of the lack of direct information on flow from individual
injection wells. Tracer injection can be used to determine early water breakthrough in different areas, cross
flow between zones and the degree of water slumping due to reverse coning.

Design
Objective
A clearly defined objective is the first step toward achieving a successful tracer study. Overall the full field
water tracer program is planned to achieve the following objectives:
● To improve the understanding towards the reservoir heterogeneity and reduce the uncertainties
associated with major faults;
SPE-177527-MS 3

●To determine the fluid pathways and verifies channels or barriers to flow;
●Monitor water breakthrough of selected patterns in zone Y;
●Determine directional permeability trends;
●Better tuning of reservoir simulation model for future prediction.
Tracer Type Selection
There are majorly 3 types of tracers been widely used in the petroleum industry: radioactive tracers,
chemical tracers and partitioning tracers. Radioactive tracers are chemicals containing radioactive isotopes
which can be identified by their unique type and energy of their emitted radiations. Chemical tracers are
also referred as non-radioactive tracers and can be identified with common analytical methods. Partition-
ing tracers are soluble in both water and oil thus useful in estimating remaining oil saturation in the swept
zone. The selection of the interwell tracers for the subject field program was based on the following
criteria:
● The injected tracers should have extremely low concentration in the natural formation or prefer-
ably not existing at all;
● The injected tracers should be stable in injecting condition, reservoir condition and producing
conditions, it should not react with naturally occurring chemicals in the reservoir or been absorbed
in the subsurface formations;
● The injected tracers should have a low detection limit;
● The injected tracers should be environmentally friendly and meet the local HSE regulations.

Ultimately chemical tracers were selected over radioactive tracers for the following reasons:
●The chemical tracers selected have a detection limit of 10 PPT (part per trillion), which is lower
than most of the currently used radioactive tracers. These low detection limits will enable the
recommended tracers to be identified even at a high dilution factor in the reservoir.
● Safety is a major concern in terms of tracer selection, the chosen chemical tracers in this project
are environmentally friendly, non-flammable and non-toxic thus have minimal hazards.
● The chemical tracers selected are extremely stable at all conditions in the program. And the
compatibility test shows that they are well compatible with the subject field produced and injected
fluids.
Volume calculation
One of the key point when designing interwell tracer program is to inject sufficient tracer material into
the reservoir to assure a detectable tracer concentration to be presented in the well scheduled to be sampled
during the program under a wide range of flow scenarios. Therefore, an understanding of the parameters
that effect the produced tracer concentration must exist. The quantity of tracer material required for
injection is dependent on the following reservoir parameters:
● Distance between injectors and producer,
● Total reservoir thickness open to flow,
● The current water saturation in the reservoir,
● Analytical detection limits of the tracers injected,
Volumetric method, also referred as total dilution method, is employed to calculate the required
amount of tracer material:

● Pore Volume ⫽ ␲r2h␸

4 SPE-177527-MS

● r ⫽ distance between injectors and producer,

● h ⫽ average thickness of reservoir (feet)
● ␸ ⫽ average matrix porosity in reservoir
● DL ⫽ detection limit of the tracer injected, 10 ppt (parts per trillion)
● DF ⫽ design factor. A design factor of 10 was applied to the tracer design to account for the
dispersion and dilution of the injected tracer material in the total volume of injected fluid.
The calculated tracer amounts for each of the injectors are listed in Table 1.

Table 1—Tracer Volume Calculation

Well selection
Streamline modeling has been utilized to obtain a list of potential injectors and corresponding producers
for the subject tracer study to improve the understanding towards the reservoir heterogeneity and reduce
the uncertainties associated with major faults. In addition to the streamline simulation model, model water
saturations, well allocations and well production tests were also used to update the list of wells. The main
criteria for well selection is to assure adequate areal coverage of the reservoir for the injection wells, also
considering wells on either side of major fault corridors. As for the production wells the selection criteria
has been wells that have existing water cut which gives a higher probability of detecting the tracers which
are associated with the water. A total of 23 injectors in Zone Y are identified for water tracer injection
SPE-177527-MS 5

and correspondingly 50 plus strings for observation of tracer. Figure 1 showed the streamline modeling
while the tracer injection and sampling location map can be seen in Figure 2.

Figure 1—Streamline Modeling

Figure 2—Tracer Injection and Sampling Location Map

6 SPE-177527-MS

Monitoring Plan
Following the injection of the chemical tracers in the reservoir, samples of the produced fluids from
specific producers selected from above streamline modeling will be taken at predetermined intervals and
analyzed for the presence of tracer. Usually in order to precisely capture the tracer arrival time and to
accurately define the entire tracer wave, high frequency of sampling will be scheduled and thus a large
amount of samples will be taken, however not necessarily every sample has to be analyzed. It was planned
to collect regular monthly samples and to analyze every third sample for detection of the tracer, and once
tracer has been identified in a sample, prior samples will then be analyzed to determine the exact time of
tracer arrival and analyze every sample thereafter to determine the tracer curve. After the tracer has been
in the reservoir for a considerable amount of time, the tracer band will have prolonged so less frequent
samples are required. Nevertheless, the monitoring plan should be updated all the time to capture any
change that may happen within the reservoir.
Execution
Pre-Injection Preparation
Before the commencement of any tracer injection, a scout trip is always necessary to investigate the
operational and logistical aspects of the tracer study, such as risk assessment, well head integrity, injection
point determination etc. Another important procedure is to collect initial, pre-injection samples for
compatibility test and base-line laboratory analysis, so that a background reading of existing chemicals in
the reservoir is obtained.
Tracer Injection
The tracers injected are chemicals in water solutions. A specially designed pump will be utilized for
injection. Injection point should be carefully picked so that the tracer can be introduced into the individual
injection lines with no possibility of contamination. The injection should be carried out after injecting
wells reach stability injection. Also due to the possible existence of some natural fractures or high
permeability streaks, it is recommended to perform the injection of the tracer material into each well over
a longer period of time to facilitate obtaining a better tracer curve from the sampled producers. All
information such as well number, injected tracer name, volume of tracer been injected, displacing time etc.
should be carefully recorded. The schematic of the injection pumping system can be seen in Figure 3.

Figure 3—Schematic of the injection pumping system

Sampling
Below are a few points to be considered during taking water samples from the well head:
1. Before taking the water samples, vent the sampling point and let the fluid to flow to the atmosphere
SPE-177527-MS 7

for a sufficient amount of time to ensure that the later obtained sample is representative of the flow
stream.
2. Another point to be noted is that to make sure not using the same hose for collecting the well head
samples to avoid cross contaminations. Multiple hoses should be prepared and cleaned in the lab,
and each should be used only once for taking well head samples before taking back to the lab and
properly clean again.
3. Usually a mixture of produced oil and water will be collected. The volume need to be collected
depend on the water cut of the sampled well: the lower the water cut, the higher volume that has
to be collected so that enough amount of water can be obtained after separation for the tracer
testing. The mixture may also contain solids or have emulsions, so it needs to be taken to the lab
and properly separated by de-canting, filtering or centrifuge for clean water to be available for
tracer testing.
Lab Testing
The collected water samples should be properly sealed, stored and shipped to the lab for tracer testing.
Chemical tracers generally require extensive chemical separations and specialized measurements. The
majority of analyses are performed by chromatographic techniques with a variety of detection systems
including mass-spectrometry and electron capture detection. Blank test should be done before any analysis
started to exclude any possibility of contamination from the instrument or the environment. Also the
monitoring plan is subject to change according to the results of lab testing.

Summary
● Twenty three water injectors were identified based on streamline modeling for tracer injection and
dozens of producers for monitoring.
● Injected tracers were selected based on the uniqueness, stability, detection limit and environmental
friendliness, and compatibility tests were done in advance between tracers and reservoir fluids.
● Total dilution method was used to calculate the quantity of tracers injected in each of the well.
● A comprehensive monitoring program was scheduled to capture the arriving of the tracer as well
as to depict the entire tracer wave.
● Sampling frequency should be properly designed to capture the breakthrough (high frequency in
the beginning is required)
● Every effort should be made to avoid sampling contamination: always use clean bottle & clean
hose for water sampling; samples should be properly stored and sealed and shipped, blanks should
be routinely run to in the lab and QC of Lab analysis is essential.

Acknowledge
The authors wished to thank ADCO and ADNOC management for permission to prepare, publish and
present this paper.

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