SPE-179026-MS

Injectivity Impairment During Produced Water Disposal into

Low-Permeability Völkersen Aquifer (Compressibility and Reservoir
Boundary Effects)
Z. You, University of Adelaide; A. Kalantariasl, Shiraz University; K. Schulze, J. Storz, C. Burmester,
and S. Künckeler, DEA Deutsche Erdoel AG; P. Bedrikovetsky, University of Adelaide

Copyright 2016, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE International Conference & Exhibition on Formation Damage Control held in Lafayette, Louisiana, USA, 24 –26
February 2016.

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
of the paper have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect
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consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may
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Abstract
Compressibility needs to be accounted for when estimating injectivity decline for water disposal in gas
reservoirs and in closed aquifers, and for waterflooding of gas-condensate fields. The problem with given
wellbore pressure at the injector aims avoiding the reservoir fracturing. An analytical model is developed
that provides well injectivity index decline with time. Under this model, the solution of damage-free
compressible flow in a closed reservoir is asymptotically matched with the impedance growth formulae
for incompressible flow in the well vicinity. For the well regime of a given wellbore pressure, the injection
rate decline is described by a nonlinear integro-differential equation that is solved iteratively. The solution
under the field conditions investigated shows that well impedance grows faster during deep bed filtration
than during external cake formation. This unusual pattern is explained by low permeability of the
reservoir. Well impedance is more sensitive to the effect of formation damage than to the compressibility
effect of rock and water. Lower formation damage, higher compressibility, or lower injected particle
concentration results in larger total injection volume into a closed reservoir.

Introduction
Well injectivity decline during water injection has been widely reported in the literature. The phenomenon
is attributed to solid and liquid particles present in the injected water after treatment. The particles are
captured by porous media, causing permeability reduction (deep bed filtration) and forming a low-
permeable external filter cake (Fig. 1); both phenomena contribute to the growing skin factor in injection
wells (Saripalli et al. 2000; Sharma et al. 2000; Rousseau et al. 2008). In oil industry, mathematical
models and associated laboratory studies for water injection with suspended particles have assumed that
during simultaneous injection and production, injected and formation fluids are incompressible.
However, fluid and rock compressibility highly affect well behaviour prediction in many applications
of water injection. Water injection into gas reservoirs is utilised mostly for produced water disposal, which
could help maintain reservoir pressure and accelerate gas production (Sun et al. 2014). Re-injection of
water produced during de-watering of coalbed methane fields, is carried out at the first stage of the field
2 SPE-179026-MS

Figure 1—Mechanical equilibrium of particle on the surface of external filter cake: a) deep bed filtration and external filter cake
formation during water injection; b) schematic of forces exerting the particle on cake surface

development (Jamshidi and Jessen 2012; Davies et al. 2015). Produced water re-injection technology is
also applied to unconventional water-soluble gas reservoirs, which contain dissolved methane in high-
pressure and high-temperature formation water. The technology can not only enhance gas production by
maintaining reservoir pressure, but solve the problem of water disposal (Sun et al. 2014). Waterflooding
of gas-condensate fields has long been under consideration (Matthews et al. 1988; Fishlock and Probert
1996). Compressibility must be taken into account for CO2-injectivity in geo-sequestration projects
(Ehlig-Economides and Economides 2010, Wood 2015) and for disposal of produced water in closed
aquifers.
According to Darcy’s law, water injection rate is proportional to the pressure drop between the well and
reservoir; the proportionality coefficient is defined as well injectivity index (II). The normalized reciprocal
to the injectivity index is called the impedance (J), which is used to describe the injectivity decline (Civan
2007; Oliveira et al. 2014):
(1)

where q is the well rate and pw and pe are pressures at the wellbore and reservoir, respectively. Growth
of hydraulic resistance occurs during two regimes of produced water re-injection: one is the well rate
decline under the constant pressure drop injection; the other is the pressure drop increase under the
constant rate injection. In both cases the well index II decreases and the impedance J increases.
The analytical models for injectivity decline during waterflooding allow predicting well behaviour
under different strategies of injected water treatment (Barkman and Davidson, 1972; Sharma et al 2000;
Bedrikovetsky et al 2011; Kalantariasl and Bedrikovetsky, 2014). Those models assume fluid incom-
SPE-179026-MS 3

pressibility, since the volumetric balance is maintained during water injection and the production of oil
with water. This assumption is not valid for produced water disposal in bounded aquifers, where the
reservoir pressure increases during injection. To the best of our knowledge, an analytical model for
injectivity decline accounting for rock and fluid compressibility is not available in the literature.
The present work develops an analytical model for injectivity impairment during injection into a
bounded formation and accounts for compressibility. The model is obtained by matching the impedance
formulae for deep bed filtration and cake formation in incompressible fluid near the wellbore, with the
analytical model for compressible fluid flow in the damage-free zone. For the well injection regime with
a given wellbore pressure, the analytical model exhibits an injection rate decline with time, described by
a nonlinear integro-differential equation that is solved iteratively. It is found that in low-permeability
reservoirs, well impedance grows much faster during deep bed filtration than during external filter cake
formation. The calculations for low-permeability reservoirs show that formation damage near the wellbore
has greater effect on well impedance than do rock and water compressibility. The analytical model
facilitates multi-variant sensitivity study of injectivity with disposal of water, produced from gas field,
into Völkersen aquifer (Germany).
Modelling of injectivity decline due to deep bed filtration and external cake
formation
In this section, well injectivity decline due to deep bed filtration of the injected particles and external cake
formation on the well wall is briefly described. Injection well impedance can increase due to deep bed
filtration of suspended particles in the reservoir, followed by the formation of filter cake on the inner
surface of the wellbore (Fig. 1a), as described in Sharma et al. (2000). The typical impedance curve
consists of three segments: two tilted straight lines corresponding to deep bed filtration and external cake
formation, and a horizontal line corresponding to cake stabilization (Fig. 2), as discussed in Kalantariasl
and Bedrikovetsky (2014).

Figure 2—Matching the field data by the analytical model for well injectivity decline (Field A, Campos Basin, Brazil)

Fig. 1a illustrates injected particles’ penetrating and being captured by rocks. This is modelled by the
filtration coefficient ␭, which is the particle capture probability per unit length of the trajectory, and by
the formation damage coefficient ␤, which is the increase of reciprocal to relative permeability per unit
4 SPE-179026-MS

concentration of retained particles. The dimensionless time tD is defined as the cumulative injected
volume divided by the reservoir pore volume (PVI):
(2)

where re is reservoir radius and ␾ is porosity. Well impedance grows linearly with tD during particle
penetration into the reservoir, as shown in Eq. (A3) of Appendix A. The slope of the linear dependency
J(tD) is proportional to the formation damage coefficient and injected particle concentration; it also
depends on the filtration coefficient and reservoir size.
Eventually, the retained concentration reaches the ␣–th fraction of porosity ␣␾, which is large enough
to prevent penetration of the injected particles into rocks. From then on, particles accumulate at the
entrance and start forming the filter cake, which allows only water to pass. The moment characterizing the
transition from deep bed filtration to external cake formation is called the transition time, which is
calculated using Eq. (A5) (Pang and Sharma (1997); Sharma et al. (2000)). The transition time is
determined by the critical porosity fraction ␣, the filtration coefficient ␭, injected concentration c0, and
reservoir size re.
The injected particles start forming an external filter cake after the transition time (Barkman and
Davidson 1972; Ochi et al. 1999). Under the assumption of incompressible filter cake, the cake volume
can be obtained as the total number of particles injected since transition time, divided by the volumetric
fraction of particles in the cake, as indicated in Eq. (A6). This results in the linear impedance dependency
of tD in Eq. (A7). The impedance growth coefficient mc is proportional to the ratio between the reservoir
and cake permeabilities, and also to injected concentration.
The mathematical model for cake stabilization is defined by the mechanical equilibrium of a single
particle on the cake surface (Fig. 1b). The particle torque balance equation in Eq. (A8) is applied to
determine the stabilized cake thickness, which yields the expression for the cake stabilization time tDe in
Eq. (A9).
Finally, the injectivity decline is described by the following formulae:
(3)

where the formulae for m, mc, tDtr, and tDe are presented in Appendix A.
Fig. 2 shows field data of well impedance growth for an injection well (Field A, Brazil) (Paiva et al.
2006). The impedance data (black points) exhibit good agreement with the model-derived impedance
curve consisting of three line segments (blue lines); the matched model constants vary in common
intervals. The injection well behavior validates the mathematical model (3).

Analytical model for compressible water injection into closed reservoir

This section develops the analytical model for produced water re-injection into a closed reservoir,
accounting for rock and fluid compressibility. Explicit formulae are presented and will be applied to the
injectivity model in the next section.
For slightly compressible fluids and rocks, the flow of fluids from the wellbore into homogeneous
porous media is described by the radial diffusivity equation (Eq. (B1)) subject to the initial condition (Eq.
(B2)) and the outer boundary condition at reservoir radius (Eq. (B3)) in Appendix B. At the wellbore, the
pressure pw(t) is provided, as the inner boundary condition:
(4)
SPE-179026-MS 5

The analytical solution to the problem (B1–B3, 4) is derived under the assumption that pressure
variation rate ⭸p/⭸t is independent of r. The details of derivation are provided in Appendix B. Here we
recall the explicit formulae for pressure and flow rate as:
(5)

(6)

where constants A, B, and E are given by (B11) and (B14).

Substituting (6) into (5) and taking r ⫽ re yield:
(7)

where pe(t) ⫽ p(ret). It indicates that the pressure drop across the reservoir is proportional to the flow
rate at any time, for any given wellbore pressure.
The following parameter values are used in the simulation for our case study: wellbore radius rw ⫽0.11
m, reservoir radius re ⫽1170 m, rock porosity ␾⫽0.123, reservoir permeability k⫽4 md, wellbore
pressure Pa, reservoir pressure pres ⫽ 1.80 ⫻ 107 Pa, water compressibility cw ⫽ 4.35
⫻ 10⫺10 1/Pa, and water viscosity ␮ ⫽ 2.6 ⫻ 10⫺4 Pa s. Pressure profiles p(r,t) obtained from the
analytical solution (Eq. (4)) at three instants (0.5, 1.5, and 3.0 years) are shown in Fig. 3 (three solid
curves). The dimensionless time T is calculated as . The governing equation along with initial
and boundary conditions (Eqs. (B1–B3, 4)) is solved numerically using the finite difference method. The
difference scheme is a second order central difference in space and a forward difference in time. The
obtained pressure profiles are plotted as dashed curves in Fig. 3. Comparison between the analytical and
numerical solutions shows a relative error of 3.1%, which validates the analytical model.

Figure 3—Comparison between the pressure profiles calculated from the analytical and numerical solutions for damage-free injection
into a closed formation (T1ⴝ1.33, T2ⴝ3.99, T3ⴝ7.99, corresponding to t1ⴝ 0.5 year; t2ⴝ 1.5 years; t3ⴝ 3.0 years)
6 SPE-179026-MS

Semi-analytical algorithm for injectivity evolution in closed reservoir

This section develops the method of calculating injectivity evolution in a closed reservoir, based on the
analytical model for compressible fluid flow in bounded porous media and the model for skin growth
during injection of water containing suspended particles (Appendix A). The nonlinear integro-differential
equation for injection rate evolution (Appendix C) is solved iteratively. The solution procedure is as
follows:
1. At t⫽0, the pressure p(r, 0) is given as the reservoir pressure (B2).
2. At the moment t, apply the analytical model (5, 6), leading to the pressure profile p(r, t) and flow
rate q(t), from given wellbore pressure pw(t).
3. Calculate the dimensionless cumulative injected volume tD as the ratio between the total volume
of fluid injected and total porous space per unit reservoir thickness (2).
4. Obtain the skin factor from the well impedance due to formation
damage (3).
5. Calculate the pressure at the damage radius accounting for pressure drop in the formation damage
zone (C1, C2).
6. Update the pressure profile p(r, t) and rate q(t) in the damage-free zone (5, 6).
7. Re-iterate steps (3)–(6) until the convergence of p(r, t) and q(t).
8. Move to the next time until the prescribed maximum injection time is reached.
9. Calculate the impedance index using Eq. (1).
This method of calculating the injectivity evolution in a closed reservoir is applied to Völkersen field
(Germany) where water produced from gas field is disposed; the results are presented in the next section.

Results analysis
The transient pressure profiles in a closed reservoir (Völkersen field, Germany) obtained from the
injectivity model are shown in Fig. 4. The field and fluid properties have been presented in the case earlier.
The injected particle concentration c0⫽0.6 ppm. Formation damage parameters are assigned the following
typical values: filtration coefficient ␭⫽100 1/m, formation damage coefficient ␤⫽100, and cake perme-
ability kc⫽0.27 md. Pressure profiles at T⫽0, 2.66, 5.32, and 7.99 show the increase of pressure with time,
due to pressure wave propagation in the closed reservoir.

Figure 4 —Pressure profile at different times for the Völkersen field conditions (T1ⴝ2.66, T2ⴝ5.32, T3ⴝ7.99, corresponding to t1ⴝ 1 year;
t2ⴝ 2 years; t3ⴝ 3 years)
SPE-179026-MS 7

Fig. 5 shows the injection rate reduction versus time with and without injectivity damage (blue and
black curves, respectively). The reference rate used to calculate the dimensionless injection rate is based
on the initial pressure drop across the reservoir:
(8)

Figure 5—Effect of formation damage on the injection rate for typical values of injectivity damage coefficients (pessimistic case: ␭ⴝ
150 1/m, ␤ⴝ200, kⴝ2 md; realistic case: ␭ⴝ100 1/m, ␤ⴝ100, kⴝ4 md; optimistic case: ␭ⴝ50 1/m, ␤ⴝ50, kⴝ8 md)

The impedance growth slope during deep bed filtration, as calculated by Eq. (A4), is equal to m⫽975,
while that during external cake formation is mc⫽4 (Eq. (A7)). The high m is explained by high filtration
and formation damage coefficients in low-permeable rocks (see Eq. (A4)), whereas the low mc is due to
low permeability of the undamaged rock. Therefore, more moderate skin growth is observed during
external filter cake formation than during deep bed filtration. To support this statement, pessimistic
(␭⫽150 1/m, ␤⫽200, k⫽2 md) and optimistic (␭⫽50 1/m, ␤⫽50, k⫽8 md) scenarios are presented in Fig.
5 as red and green curves, respectively. Comparison of formation damage scenarios (red, blue, and green
curves) shows that higher filtration and formation damage coefficients lead to steeper rate decline during
deep bed filtration; whereas lower rock permeability results in slower rate decline during cake formation.
The above phenomena also explain the rapid impedance growth at the beginning of injection (Fig. 6).
The realistic scenario (blue curve) corresponds to the field data described above. The pessimistic scenario
(red curve) corresponds to higher filtration and formation damage coefficients and lower rock permea-
bility. The optimistic scenario (green curve) corresponds to lower filtration and formation damage
coefficients and higher rock permeability. The impedance in the pessimistic case grows faster during deep
bed filtration and slower during cake formation. The impedance in the optimistic case exhibits the
opposite behavior. This supports the conclusion that initial steep impedance growth during deep bed
filtration and gradual growth during cake formation are due to high filtration and formation damage
coefficients in low-permeability reservoirs.
8 SPE-179026-MS

Figure 6 —Effect of formation damage on well impedance growth for compressible fluid flow in a closed reservoir

Well impedance does not grow during damage-free injection (black curve), due to proportionality
between the pressure drop across the reservoir and the flow rate at any time (Eq. (7)). Under the reservoir
conditions of Völkersen field, well impedance increases 31% during water injection of 0.01 PVI (blue
curve). The reduction of impedance, neglecting the effect of formation damage, is 24%.
The sensitivity of the rate curve with respect to compressibility is presented in Fig. 7. Under the
reservoir conditions, the blue and red solid curves (realistic scenario) correspond to compressible and
incompressible cases, respectively. The pessimistic and optimistic scenarios are shown in Fig. 7 as
dash-dot and dashed curves, respectively. The difference between blue and red curves decreases from
optimistic scenario (dashed curves) toward pessimistic scenario (dash-dot curves), which indicates the
smaller compressibility effect on the rate decline with more severe formation damage. This is because
more severe formation damage corresponds to higher filtration and formation damage coefficients and
lower rock permeability, which lead to faster rate decline and lower rate during deep bed filtration. The
low rate values reduce the effect of compressibility.

Figure 7—Effect of compressibility on injection rate versus time, under given pressures in the wellbore and on the reservoir boundary
SPE-179026-MS 9

Fig. 8 shows the impedance growth curves for both compressible (blue curves) and incompressible (red
curves) cases, under three formation damage scenarios. The more severe formation damage yields faster
impedance growth during deep bed filtration. Under the reservoir conditions of Völkersen field, well
impedance increases 31% during water injection of 0.01 PVI (blue solid curve). Injection of incompress-
ible fluid into the same reservoir yields an impedance rise of 37% (red solid curve). The relative variation
of impedance by neglecting the effect of compressibility is 5%.

Figure 8 —Effect of compressibility on well impedance growth, for a given pressures in the wellbore and on the reservoir boundary

The effect of injected particle concentration on the impedance growth is shown in Fig. 9. Blue, red, and
green curves correspond to particle concentrations of 0.6, 3, and 6 ppm, respectively. Higher injected
particle concentration yields higher formation damage in the damaged zone, resulting in higher impedance
growth slopes during deep bed filtration (A4) and external cake formation (A7), and earlier transition
between these two stages (A5). During water injection of 0.01 PVI with concentrations 0.6, 3, and 6 ppm,
well impedance increases 31%, 47% and 65%, respectively.
10 SPE-179026-MS

Figure 9 —Effect of injected particle concentration on well impedance growth (cⴝ0.6 ppm)

Fig. 10 presents the effect of reservoir size on well impedance growth. The blue curve shows the result
under the real reservoir size, whereas the green and red curves correspond to half and double radii of the
reservoir, respectively. Larger reservoir size results in steeper impedance growth slopes during deep bed
filtration (A4) and external cake formation (A7), and earlier transition between these two stages (A5).

Figure 10 —Effect of reservoir size on well impedance growth (reⴝ1170 m)

SPE-179026-MS 11

Figure 11—Sensitivity study of the dimensionless cumulative injected water volume: (a) different formation damage scenario; (b)
varying total compressibility; (c) varying injected particle concentration
12 SPE-179026-MS

Sensitivity study of the accumulated injected volume is presented in Fig. 11. Fig. 11a shows three
different formation damage scenarios. Sensitivity study of the dimensionless cumulative injected water
volume with respect to compressibility, and injected particle concentration are presented in Figs. 11(b),
and (c), respectively. The more severe formation damage corresponds to higher filtration and formation
damage coefficients and lower rock permeability, which result in a lower injection rate (Fig. 7). Therefore,
during the same period of time, the pessimistic scenario leads to the lowest total injected water volume
(red curve in Fig. 11(a)), whereas the optimistic scenario yields the highest (green curve in Fig. 11(a)).
Higher total compressibility of water and rock yields smaller diffusivity K, thus a lower dimensionless
time ( ) is required for the injection of the same amount of water (Fig. 11(b)). Regarding the
injected particle concentration, Fig. 11(c) shows that the cumulative injected water volume decreases with
concentration of particles. This is due to the higher impedance growth caused by higher particle
concentration (Fig. 9).

Discussion
The analytical model for damage-free injection into a closed reservoir, which is based on the assumption
that the pressure derivative over time is independent of radius, shows a relative error when compared with
the analytical solution, of 3.1% in pressure profiles during water injection of 0.01 PVI.
The analytical model (5, 6) exhibits proportionality between the rate and pressure drop across the
reservoir at any moment. Therefore, the well index remains constant in the case of damage-free injection.
The inner asymptotic expansion of the problem of suspension injection into a closed reservoir over
small parameter ␭rd corresponds to the analytical model for injectivity decline for incompressible fluid
flow. The outer asymptotic expansion corresponds to compressible damage-free fluid flow during
injection into a closed reservoir. Matching of inner and outer asymptotic expansions yields the analytical
model for suspension injection into a closed reservoir. Under the condition of given wellbore pressure, the
analytical model reduces to a nonlinear integro-differential equation describing injection rate decline with
time, which can be solved iteratively.
Transition time between stages of deep bed filtration and external cake formation decreases with
injected particle concentration c0, filtration coefficient ␭, and reservoir size re (A5). For the conditions of
Völkersen field, transition time tDtr varies from 2.6 ⫻ 10⫺4 to 2.6 ⫻ 10⫺5 PVI, where the particle
concentration c0 varies from 0.6 to 6 ppm. Correspondingly, cake stabilization time tDe calculated from
(A9) varies from 0.14 to 0.01 PVI.
The calculations for low-permeable reservoirs show that the variations in impedance during water
injection of 0.01 PVI by neglecting the effects of formation damage is 24%. Neglecting the compress-
ibility yields the 5% variation. This indicates that formation damage near the wellbore has significantly
greater effect on well impedance than rock and water compressibility have.

Conclusions
Mathematical modelling for injectivity impairment during produced water re-injection into a closed
reservoir leads to the following conclusions:
● The analytical model for damage-free injection into a closed formation yields the results with
difference only a few percent from the high precision numerical solution.
● Since the filtration and formation damage coefficients are large for low-permeability reservoirs,
the impedance grows significantly during deep bed filtration. More moderate impedance growth
is observed during external filter cake formation, due to slow impedance growth in low-perme-
ability reservoirs.
● Well impedance is significantly more sensitive to the effect of formation damage than to the
compressibility of rock and water.
SPE-179026-MS 13

● The higher concentration of injected particles or larger reservoir size causes higher impedance
growth during deep bed filtration and external cake formation, and earlier transition between these
two stages.
● A larger volume of water injection can be achieved under the conditions of less severe formation
damage, higher compressibility, or lower injected particle concentration.

Acknowledgments
The authors thank DEA Deutsche Erdoel AG for sponsorship on the theoretical and experimental research.

Nomenclature
c0 concentration of particles in the injected water, ppm
cf formation rock compressibility, M⫺1LT2, Pa⫺1
ct total compressibility, M⫺1LT2, Pa⫺1
cw water compressibility, M⫺1LT2, Pa⫺1
Fd drag force, MLT⫺2, N
Fe electrostatic force, MLT⫺2, N
Fg gravitational force, MLT⫺2, N
Fl lifting force, MLT⫺2, N
Fp permeate force, MLT⫺2, N
hc cake thickness, L, m
II injectivity index, M⫺1L3T, m3skg⫺1
J well impedance
K diffusivity, L2T⫺1, m2s⫺1
k reservoir rock permeability, L2, m2
kc external cake permeability, L2, m2
ld lever arm for detaching forces, L, m
ln lever arm for normal forces, L, m
m slope of impedance growth during deep bed filtration
mc slope of impedance growth during cake formation
p pressure, ML⫺1T⫺2, Pa
q injection rate per unit of reservoir thickness, L2T⫺1, m2s⫺1
r radius, L, m
rd damage zone radius, L, m
re reservoir radius, L, m
S skin factor
T dimensionless time
t time, T, s
tD dimensionless cumulative injected volume (PVI)
tDtr transition time (PVI)
tDe cake stabilization time (PVI)
Xw dimensionless squared well radius
Greek letters
␣ critical porosity fraction
␤ formation damage coefficient
␭ filtration coefficient, L⫺1, m⫺1
␮ water viscosity, ML⫺1T⫺1, kgm⫺1s⫺1
⌬p pressure drop across the reservoir, ML⫺1T⫺2, Pa
14 SPE-179026-MS

␾ reservoir rock porosity

␾c external cake porosity
Abbreviations
PVI pore volume injected
Subscripts
res reservoir
w wellbore
0 initial

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Sharma, M.M., Pang, S., Wennberg, K.E., Morgenthaler, L.N., 2000. Injectivity decline in water-injection wells: An
offshore Gulf of Mexico case study. SPE Production & Facilities 15, 6 –13.
Sun, Z., Xu, Y., Yao, J., Sun, Z., Liu, J., 2014. Numerical simulation of produced water reinjection technology for
water-soluble gas recovery. Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 21, 700 –711.
Tien, C., 2006. Introduction to Cake Filtration: Analyses, Experiments and Applications. Elsevier, Amsterdam.
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relevant to natural gas: A collection of published research (2009 –2015). Journal of Natural Gas Science and
Engineering 25, A1–A9.
16 SPE-179026-MS

Appendix A
Impedance growth during deep bed filtration and external filter cake formation

This appendix presents the analytical model for injectivity impedance during deep bed filtration and
external filter cake formation, which has been developed by Barkman and Davidson (1972), Pang and
Sharma (1997), Ochi et al. (1999), Bedrikovetsky et al. (2011) and Sacramento et al. (2015).
The particle capture rate is determined as:
(A1)

where c and ␴ are suspended and retained particle concentrations, respectively; ␭ is the filtration
coefficient.
The permeability declines due to particle retention:
(A2)

where ␤ is the formation damage coefficient.

The above works assumed low retained particle concentration, leading to constant filtration and
formation damage coefficients. Under these assumptions, well impedance grows linearly during deep bed
filtration of the injected particles in the reservoir:
(A3)

where tD is dimensionless time per unit of reservoir thickness.

The slope m of linear dependency of the impedance versus dimensionless time is determined by the
values of filtration coefficient ␭ and formation damage coefficient ␤:
(A4)

where rw is well radius, re is reservoir radius, ␾ is formation porosity, and c0 is the injected particle
concentration. The filtration and formation damage coefficients ␭ and ␤ are empirical parameters, which
can be calculated from laboratory coreflood data or evaluated from microscale empirical filtration theory
(Bradford and Torkzaban 2008).
The transition from particle deep bed filtration to external cake formation occurs when the captured
particle concentration reaches the ␣-th fraction of porosity, resulting in the following formula for the
transition time tDtr (Pang and Sharma 1997):
(A5)

The value of the critical porosity fraction ␣⫽0.1 is obtained from coreflood data treatment (Bedrik-
ovetsky et al. 2005).
Thickness of the incompressible cake is proportional to the total amount of injected particles since the
transition time (Ochi et al. 1999; Tien 2006):
(A6)

which corresponds to the linear impedance growth in the stage of external cake formation (Bedrik-
ovetsky et al. 2011):
SPE-179026-MS 17

(A7)

where k is the reservoir permeability, kc is the permeability of the external filter cake, and ␾c is the cake
porosity.
Stabilised impedance value is determined by the mechanical equilibrium of a particle attached to the
external cake surface, which is the torque balance of attaching and detaching forces (Fig. 1b):
(A8)

where ln and ld are levers of attaching normal forces (permeate Fp, electrostatic Fe, and lifting Fl) and
detaching tangential forces (drag Fd and gravity Fg), respectively. The expressions for these forces were
provided by Khilar and Fogler (1998); the levers obtained from Hertz’s particle deformation theory were
reported in Kalantariasl and Bedrikovetsky (2014).
The stabilized (critical) cake thickness hcr determined from torque balance equation (A8) is substituted
into Eq. (A6), which leads to the expression for the cake stabilization time tDe as:
(A9)

A typical type curve for impedance/skin growth during injection of water with solid and liquid particles
into rocks (Field A, Campos Basin, Brazil) is shown in Fig. 2.
Define the size of formation damage zone rd such that the closed reservoir can be divided into two
regions: In the wellbore vicinity (rw ⬍ r ⬍ rd), the fluid with suspended particles is considered
incompressible; deep bed filtration and cake formation of fines cause well injectivity impairment. In the
damage-free zone (rd ⬍ r ⬍ re), the fluid is compressible and no fines migration occurs. The damage zone
size rd can be calculated as (Nunes et al. 2010):
(A10)

where ␧ is a small parameter controlling the accuracy of the assumption that injectivity decline due to
particle retention is negligible in the damage-free zone.
The impedance Jd(tD) can be re-calculated into the skin factor growth with tD as:
(A11)
18 SPE-179026-MS

Appendix B
Derivation of the analytical solution for pressure build-up in a closed reservoir

This appendix derives the analytical solution of compressible fluid flow from a wellbore into a closed
reservoir. The explicit formulae for pressure and flow rate are obtained.
The pressure diffusivity equation in radial form is as follows (Dake 1978):
(B1)

where is the diffusivity constant, p(r, t) is fluid pressure at radius r and moment t, ␮
is viscosity of fluid, and ␾ and k are porosity and permeability of rock, respectively. The total
compressibility ct is the sum of fluid (cw) and rock (cf) values, where cf is obtained from the correlation
(Hall, 1953).
The initial condition for pressure indicates the constant reservoir pressure before injection:
(B2)

The boundary condition at reservoir radius precludes flow across the boundary. According to Darcy’s
law, the pressure gradient is zero:
(B3)

The boundary condition at the wellbore is the given injection pressure (Eq. (4)).
The analytical solution is derived under the assumption that both sides of Eq. (B1) are independent of
r, i.e., . Therefore, the right side of Eq. (B1) can be expressed as:
(B4)

Integrating Eq. (B4) with respect to r leads to:

(B5)

where the three time-dependent functions a(t),b(t) and c(t) are determined from the initial and
boundary conditions.
Applying the boundary condition at reservoir radius (Eq. (B3) to Eq. (B5) results in:
(B6)

Applying the boundary condition at the wellbore (Eq. (4) to Eq. (B5) results in:
(B7)

Integrating Eq. (B1) and accounting for boundary condition Eq. (B3) yields:
(B8)

Substituting Eq. (B5) into Eq. (B8) leads to:

(B9)

Substituting Eqs. (B6, B7) into Eq. (B9) simplifies Eq. (B9) as:
(B10)

where
SPE-179026-MS 19

(B11)

The solution to Eq. (B10) with respect to the unknown a(t) is obtained as:
(B12)

where c1 is a constant, and .

Substituting Eq. (B12) into Eqs. (B6, B7) results in the expressions for the functions b(t) and c(t) as:
(B13)

Substituting Eqs. (B12, B13) into Eq. (B5) and applying the initial condition (B2) yield the expression
for the parameter c1:
(B14)

The final form of the pressure profile is obtained by substitution of expressions (B-12)–(B-14) into eq
(B-5) and is given by formula (5).
The flow rate is calculated based on Darcy’s law
(B16)

and is presented by eq (6) in the explicit form.

The explicit formulae for pressure and rate are applied for derivation of the analytical model for
compressible fluid flow in a closed reservoir.
20 SPE-179026-MS

Appendix C
Analytical model for rate decline with given wellbore pressure

The pressure drop due to deep bed filtration and external filter cake formation occurs across the thin zone
with the radius of the formation damage zone, which is significantly smaller than the drainage radius
(Nunes et al. 2010). The wellbore pressure is equal to the damage-free wellbore pressure plus the pressure
drop across the damaged zone:
(C1)

The pressure drop across the damaged zone is expressed as (Dake 1978):
(C2)

where the skin factor .

Substituting Eq. (C1) and Eq. (C2) into the analytical model for the rate in a damage-free zone of Eq.
(6) yields:
(C3)

The obtained equation for unknown rate q(t) is an integro-differential equation, which is solved by the
iterative method.