SPE-187673-MS

Making Water Injection Interventions Work: The Importance of

Understanding Thermal Effects in Fractured Water Injectors

G. Duvivier, BP; M. Al-Naqi, A. A. Ameen, N. Al-Enizi, A. Al-Shati, and S. Rajan, Kuwait Oil Company; R. A. Clark,
BP

Copyright 2017, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Kuwait Oil & Gas Show and Conference held in Kuwait City, Kuwait, 15-18 October 2017.

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
Stimulating water injectors successfully is critical to any waterflood and to successfully stimulate wells it
is important to understand what technology works and what does not. An effective method of evaluating
stimulation efficency is by monitoring the long term performance of the water injectors and how injection
pressure and temperature varies over time.
The primary source of injection water for Greater Burgan is produced water, which is collected through
an extensive gathering system. Because this gathering system is so large, the resulting fluids drop to
atmospheric temperature before they are available for injection. Average daily temperatures in Kuwait vary
by more than 60°F annually. All of the injection wells are injecting above fracturing pressures and these
temperature swings impact the size of fractures leading to observed changes in rate of up to 40%. These
effects must be understood to evaluate the impact of injection fluid temperature upon stimulation.
Monitoring this surface injection data has allowed the team to select a successful stimulation method for
the injectors and added significantly to the field's injection rate.

Introduction
The Wara reservoir is a sandstone interval in the Greater Burgan field located in South East Kuwait (see
Figure 1).
The Wara is one of the key remaining intervals to be developed within the Greater Burgan field (Figure
2) and its development is vital to maintaining the Burgan field's production plateau.
The Wara, in contrast to much of the other reservoirs in the Burgan field, does not have sufficient aquifer
support to maintain reservoir pressure. As a result, the interval requires significant water injection to achieve
reasonable recovery and production rates. A staged waterflood scheme was implemented with the injection
of produced water into an initial seven wells beginning in late 2009, with the addition of 83 wells in 2016.
A lot has been learned since the startup of the first injector, especially the correct application of
stimulation needed to maximize injection on the more recent 83 wells. It proved to be difficult to assess the
impact of the stimulations applied to the initial seven wells, which were all acid washes, due to the strong
thermal effects impacting well performance (see Figure 3):
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Figure 1—Burgan map in the context of Kuwait

Figure 2—Burgan cartoon cross-section after Stratigraphic & Reservoir Characterisation report prepared for KOC by
B. Kostic, D. Meadows, R. Smith, N. Foote and A. James, (Badley-Ashton - 2016) modified after Al-Eidan et al. (2001)
SPE-187673-MS 3

Figure 3—Injection rate and temperature against time

The impact of temperature needs to be evaluated to understand how it affects the performance of the
acid washes. Once the thermal effects had been removed, it was clear that the acid washes had no sustained
effect on performance. As a result, the stimulation method was changed to a flowback cleanup technique
for the subsequent wells. This later method yielded good results, as demonstrated by sustained injectivity
since switching from acid wash to flowback.

Fractured Water Injection Principles

Injection rate below fracture pressure is governed by the following equation:

To sustain injection in sandstone reservoirs it is generally necessary to inject over fracture pressure. When
injecting over fracture pressure, the skin reduces over time due to the fracture stimulating the rock and
improving injectivity. Injector behaviour is governed by two relationships:
1. Standard radial Darcy equation with stable skin
2. Standard radial Darcy equation with variable skin
4 SPE-187673-MS

In the second relationship, the injectivity is also linear in hard rocks. These two relationships can be seen
in the post-stimulation injection test on one of the injectors:
With this type of relationship the fracture pressure of the rock is critical for understanding and predicting
injection rate. From experiments such as that shown in Figure 4 it is possible to establish the initial fracture
pressure of the rock.

Figure 4—Typical injector pressure vs rate plot

Under normal conditions, injection of cooler water into a sandstone reservoir will cool the rock, which
reduces the fracture pressure of the rock. This is known as the thermo-elastic effect. In the case of the Wara,
this change varies significantly through the year as a result of atmospheric temperature changes.
Injection into a sand will also increase its pressure, particularly close to the wellbore, which will
correspondingly increase the fracture pressure of the rock. This is known as the poro-elastic effect.

Thermo-Elastic Effect
The thermo-elastic effect on horizontal stress can be determined using the following equation (Equation 2):
SPE-187673-MS 5

This equation models the rock around the well as a cooled disk. As the cooled disk around the wellbore
increases in size to greater than 10 times the thickness of the formation, the shape factor (in the big brackets
in Equation 2) tends towards 1. This allows the simplification of Equation 2 resulting in Equation 3:

Utilising this constant, it becomes simple to compute the impact that temperature change will have on
the rock's fracture pressure (and the minimum horizontal stress):

Table 1—Possible thermoelastic effects in The Wara Waterflood

Most likely Most likely Most Likely

Min Max Summer mean Winter

Poisson's ratio 0.2 0.3 0.26 0.26 0.26

Young's modulus (PSI) 2.40E+05 5.00E+05 4.00E+05 4.00E+05 4.00E+05

Thermal expansivity (α) ºF-1 7.00E-06 9.00E-06 8.00E-06 8.00E-06 8.00E-06

Thermo elastic shape factor 1 1 1 1 1

Thermo elastic constant (ºF-1) 2.1 6.4 4.3 4.3 4.3

Reservoir temperature (ºF) 135 135 135 135 135

Injection water temperature (ºF) 110.0 55.0 110.0 85.0 60.0

Thermoelastic effect (PSI) 52.5 514.3 108.1 216.2 324.3

Poro-Elastic Effect
The poro-elastic effect is where the pressure has increased within the reservoir and the rock attempts to
balloon to accommodate this increased pressure. As the rock cannot move horizontally this leads to an
increase in its horizontal stress and therefore its fracture pressure. Similar to the thermo-elastic stress change,
the poro-elastic stress change is given by the following equation (Equation 4):
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This implies a poro-elastic constant as follows:

Computing this for the likely poro-elastic effect gives the following effect (Table 2):

Table 2—Quantification of Possible Poroelastic effects

Case name Low Mid High

Case name Low Mid High

Poisson's ratio 0.3 0.26 0.2

Biot's constant 0.7 0.8 0.9

Poroelastic shape factor 0.5 0.5 0.5

dP of near wellbore to
1000 1500 2000
reservoir (PSI)

Poro elastic constant (PSI-1) 0.20 0.26 0.34

Poroelastic effect (PSI) 200 389 675

Inflow Performance Relationship for Wara Water Injectors

As discussed earlier, a typical water injector inflow performance relationship (IPR) can be represented as
follows (see Figure 5; also see Figure 4):
SPE-187673-MS 7

Figure 5—Illustrative inflow performance for a water injector

However, with cased and perforated completions and untreated produced water being injected, it is
believed that it is unlikely there is significant matrix injection. This produces an IPR relationship which
looks like the following:

Figure 6—Illustrative Wara injector inflow performance (with 0 matrix injection)

There will also be a change between Summer and Winter fracture pressure caused by the thermo elastic
effects (see Figure 7).
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Figure 7—Illustrative Wara injector inflow performance Summer and Winter

Using the IPR relationship, the tubing performance injection rate can be calculated for Summer and
Winter (see Figure 8):

Figure 8—Illustrative Wara injector System performance Summer and Winter

The injection rate can be described using the following equation:

SPE-187673-MS 9

Where Pfrac is described by the equation below:

Pinit can be considered equal to minimum horizontal stress and this can be found through testing in situ
(e.g. mini-fracs) or can be regressed to when modeling fracture behavior.
From the equations above it is clear that rate into the formation is a function of wellbore pressure and
temperature. In the wellbore, pressure and temperature are dependent on the rate from surface. Equations can
be created for the wellbore functions when integrated with the injection rate equations to form a quadratic
equation, which can then be solved mechanistically. However, with modern computing it is also possible
to solve the problem iteratively by moving back and forth from the the injection calculations and hydraulic
calculations. The hydraulic equations can be most accurately evaluated using a suitable nodal analysis
package. Once this has been set up, given wellhead pressure and temperature, it is possible to determine the
injection rate. By tuning the input parameters it is possible to achieve a match with actual data.

Wellhead temperature determination

Wellhead temperature is a critical parameter for the above calculations. However, in the legacy injection
system, only pressure and rate were recorded daily at the wellhead, temperature was not. In order to
determine wellhead temperature, it was necessary to determine whether the injection temperature would
be dominated by the water source temperature or the atmospheric temperature. The source for all injection
water in Burgan field is either produced water or aquifer water from the slightly deeper Burgan reservoir
with an approximate temperature of 130°F-140°F. The dominant thermal system appeared atmospheric but
this needed to be demonstrated.
Some modelling was carried out to determine the likely temperature. The system modelled was that of a
typical flowline for a Burgan production well. Flowlines in the Burgan field are held off the ground using
concrete supports spaced approximately 30 metres apart, and therefore in contact with the air's temperature
and allowing effective heat exchange. As a result, a conservative U value of 8 BTU/h/ft2/°F for the flow
line was used. The flowline was modelled with some typical production rates. This modelling showed that
temperature quickly approaches air temperature in the flowline (flowlines average about 5km in length -
see Figure 9):
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Figure 9—Temperature Verses Line Length

Based on this it is assumed that injection water temperature is equal to the air temperature. Temperature
readings for Kuwait are publicly available. Data for daily mean Kuwait air temperature was obtained (see
Figure 10):

Figure 10—Kuwait Air Temperature

The dependence on air temperature was further underlined when the 83 wells were started and monitored
with a modern control system. This control system was able to report rate accurately minute by minute.
SPE-187673-MS 11

This showed there was not only a seasonal variation with temperature in rate but also a daily variation with
temperature:

Figure 11—Daily variations in rate due to temperature cycles

Injector performance and stimulation effectiveness

The injection performance for the initial seven wells was matched using the techniques described above.
This gives a modeled performance for all the wells which can be plotted with actual injection (see Figure 12):

Figure 12—Modeled and reported injection rate example (well A)

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Well A had two acid jobs performed on it that appeared superficially successful:

Figure 13—Well A with acid stimulations and impact

However, with the context of the modelled performance, it can be seen that both of these jobs had little
or no impact on injection rate. There were some wells where the acid stimulation did have a temporary
impact on injection rate:

Figure 14—Well B with acid stimulations and temporary impact

SPE-187673-MS 13

Figure 15—Well C with acid stimulations and temporary impact

In either case there was no sustained improvement in injection with acid treatments. Later improvement
can be seen in this well but this is due to changes in vertical injection conformance.
An injection test was performed on all the injectors when completed. Prior to the start-up of the remaining
83 wells it was decided to stimulate all the wells that performed worse than expected in the injection tests
using drawdown. Initially equipment to perform coil tubing nitrogen lift of the injectors was not available,
so instead a dynamic underbalance was performed on wireline.
Dynamic underbalance is where a temporary underbalance is applied to the formation by placing a hollow
tube in the wellbore at a nominal surface pressure and then rapidly connecting the hollow space to the
wellbore. The resulting inrush of fluid into this hollow tube results in a drawdown relative to the formation
pressure. This can be achieved through various methods including perforating the hollow tube and by turning
a fast-acting valve. This can provide a temporary underbalance of over a 1000 PSI lasting less than a second.
This would have the effect of surging the reservoir, cleaning gun/drilling debris, and otherwise cleaning the
formation in the near-well-bore region. Once the originally specificed equipment was available nitrogen-
lifted flowback with coil tubing was also used. Two tubing volumes was targeted flowback volume to ensure
fresh fluid passes out of the well.
Before and after stimulation, most of the wells had injection tests performed to determine performance
and judge the success of the stimulation job. Surface data was converted to downhole pressure using
hydraulic calculations in a nodal analysis program. This generated the injection performance relationship of
the rock. Adding the tubing performance for expected injection pressure during operation allows evaluation
of the expected increase in injection and the impact of the job:
14 SPE-187673-MS

Figure 16—Well D stimulation impact, injection performance before and after stimulation

As there were 30 wells to be stimulated, it was important to determine which of the two stimulation
methods used was more effective. Results from the two methods were compared (see Table 3).

Table 3—Stimulation results, dynamic underbalance and nitrogen assisted flowback

AverageStim
Average Pre Average Post impact on
stim rate (bbl/ stim rate (bbl/ rate (bbl/d) Average Pre Average Post
d) @ operating d) @ operating @ operating stim II (b/d/ stim II (b/d/ Post / Pre II
# jobs conditions conditions conditions PSI) PSI) ratio

Dynamic underbalance 8 1,940 7,137 5,197 1.3 5.8 2.6

Nitrogen assisted flowback 22 3,351 16,160 12,809 2.0 15.4 6.6

It is clear that nitrogen-lifted flowback (the wells were perforated on or over balance initially) is much
more effective at stimulating the wells. In addition, nitrogen-lifted flowback was approximately 4 times
cheaper.
When it came time to start up the 83 wells the wells were selected so that out of the initial nine wells to
be started up, six had been stimulated and three had not been stimulated. This was due to the risk that those
wells that had not been stimulated, due to good results from the injection tests at completion time, would
not perform as expected several years later during project start-up.
This risk was realised as the stimulated wells injected approximately 90% of their expected capacity
(based on the post stimulation injection tests) and the 3 unstimulated wells injected at less than 20% of
expected capacity (based on the injection tests post completion).
Based on these results a further stimulation program was launched to flowback all the unstimulated wells
with coil tubing nitrogen lifts (over 50 further stimulations). This program was very successful at raising
and sustaining the injection performance of the injectors. Rates have been sustained for 12 months on some
SPE-187673-MS 15

of the injectors, showing the nitrogen flowbacks have had a positive sustained effect at least on new wells.
This is likely due to flowbacks clearing any debris and damage from the perforations and near wellbore area
allowing better fracturing of the rock during injection.

Figure 17—Injection rate capacities across all the wells with and without stimulation

Overall, the impact of this stimulation program on the injection project has been significant. Without these
stimulations, injection rate would be limited to approximately 200 mbd, whereas the wells are currently
able to achieve approximately 700 mbd. The difference in these two injection rates is anticipated to lead to
approximately 200 mbd higher oil production rate over the medium term.

Conclusions
It is important to ensure water injectors are stimulated prior to starting injection and at intervals thereafter.
In this case the most effective form of stimulation was flowing the well back using nitrogen lift. Acid
stimulations did not give sustained benefits in the wells analysed (in a sandstone reservoir).
In order to draw this conclusion, it was necessary to be able to understand the performance of the water
injectors. The performance of the injectors analysed was heavily influenced by thermo-elastic fracture
variations caused by both seasonal and daily variations in temperature. Modeling and adequately taking
these factors into account is vital to the understanding of the underlying performance of the wells.
Fracturing is a natural consequence of the temperature difference and rock properties, and so it is best to
understand it and take advantage of it. It has been shown in the papers referenced below that it is unlikely
to impact sweep efficiency significantly and it will help in maintaining Injectivity.

Acknowledgements
I wish to thank KOC for allowing me to share the information in this paper. In addition there are several
departments in KOC that made the work shown in this paper possible. Farida Ali and Megdad Al-Naqi
provided valuable of advice and guidance. The Water Handling Team in South East Kuwait are responsible
16 SPE-187673-MS

for operations and have provided invaluable support during all aspects of this work in particular Hayef Al-
Huwailah, Abdullah Ayoub and Himangshu Dey (who highlighted the daily variations shown in Figure 11).
The Well Surveillance department were heroic in achieving so many nitrogen flowbacks in such a short
period of time after we discovered all the wells needed to be stimulated. In particular I would like to highlight
the contribution of Jassim Al-Ballam and Mustafa Al-Hamad to this.
Peter Clifford (BP) was the person who taught me the fracture principles applied in this work and shared
in this paper.

Conversion Factors
bbl × 1.589 873 E - 01 = m3
ft x3.048* E-OI =m
(°F-32)/1.8 =°C
md × 9.869 233 E-04 =f.lm2
psi × 6.894 757 E+OO =kPa

References
Perkins, T.K., Gonzalez, J.A. 1981. Changes in Earth Stresses Around a Wellbore Caused by Radially Symmetrical
Pressure and Temperature Gradients. Presented at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, San Antonio,
5–7 October. SPE-10080
Adair, P. Clifford, P.J. Hannan, M. 1994. Completion and Start-Up Of Thermally Fractured Water Injection Wells In The
Miller Field. Presented at EuRock'94, SPE/ISRM Rock Mechanics in Petroleum Enginnering, Delft (Netherlands), 29
Aug 1994. SPE/ISRM 28083
Martins, J. P. Murray, L. R. Clifford, P.J. McLelland, W. G. Hanna, M. F. Sharp, J. W. Jr. 1995. Produced-Water Reinjection
and Fracturing in Prudhoe Bay. SPE-28936
Al-Eidan, A., W.B. Wethington and R.B. Davies 2001. Upper Burgan reservoir description, Northern Kuwait: impact on
reservoir development. GeoArabia, v. 6, no. 2, p. 179-208.