SPE-181198-MS

Strategies to Increase Production in a Colombian Heavy Oil Field with Cyclic

Steam Stimulation

E. M. Trigos, R. D. Avila, and M. E. Lozano, Mansarovar Energy; A. M. Jimenez and C. A. Osorio, Ecopetrol S.A.

Copyright 2016, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Latin America and Caribbean Heavy and Extra Heavy Oil Conference held in Lima, Peru, 19-20 October 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
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Abstract
This paper shows the evolution of the cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) process in a Colombian heavy oil field.
Some challenges have been faced like: low injectivity in the first stimulation cycles, presence of swelling
clays, low lateral and vertical continuity of the producing sands, steam channeling, among others.
According to the oilfield complexity some strategies are currently being implemented after previous
studies of numerical simulation and lab test evaluation: diesel slug to improve injectivity, reduced steam
quality in the first cycles to increase steam injectivity, using clay inhibitor during steam injection, reduced
spacing in the better zones according to opportunity index map, nitrogen injection in wells with more than
six stimulation cycles, high frequency cycles and changes in completion design and drilling scheme among
others.
The set of lab test, numerical simulation and pilot test have resulted in the following: 1) Use of diesel slug
before steam soaking clean the hole improving injectivity, allowing more steam volume injection. 2) Reduce
steam quality in first stimulation cycles is useful to increase injectivity without significantly affecting steam
oil ratio SOR. 3) Using an index map opportunity help to easily identify areas with the greatest potential
for infill wells. 4) Injecting nitrogen with steam in wells with more than six stimulation cycles improve
production results due to the pressurization of producing sands.
Key recommendations for implementing a CSS process in heavy oil reservoirs with low lateral and
vertical continuity of the producing sands, swelling clays and low net to gross are presented in this article.
The recommendations range from the first injection cycles to maturity of the process and the search for
new production alternatives.

Introduction
This paper shows a study case of a heavy oil field located in Middle Magdalena Basin (Colombia). This
sector is characterized by the complex geology through braided streams deposition environments (Figure
1). The productive formation is Zone B of Chuspas Undifferentiated Group.
2 SPE-181198-MS

Figure 1—Deposition Environment of Braided Channels.

Currently, there is more than 400 active producer wells in the oilfield, producing by cyclic steam
stimulation. The development of the field has shown different problems according to the stage of the cyclic
steam stimulation. At the begin of the process, wells did not receive enough steam to increase production;
then it was necessary to carry out sensibility analysis to the shale content and its reaction with the steam
and also fix steam characteristics to improve injectivity. In a middle stage of the field development, when
the numbers of wells were increasing in a fast way, it was necessary to establish a methodology to select
steam injection candidates.
Now, when the wells have reached more than six cycles of steam stimulation; it's necessary to think in
other alternatives like to increase production and improve steam oil ratio SOR. The geological complexity
of the field increases the uncertainty associated to the new projects of infill development. This uncertainty
has been reduced using numerical simulation. In the next stages of the papers we can see how the different
problems have been reduced.

Statement of Theory and Definitions

Cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) is the thermal recovery technique most used around the world in heavy oil
(8 – 15 API), due to some advantages like: producing oil at appreciable rates relatively quickly, low initial
investment, implementation in an easy way.
Cyclic steam stimulation (CSS), commonly referred to as "Huff-n-Puff", involves steam injection into
a reservoir during some weeks (injection stage), allowing the reservoir to undergo a short period of
"soaking" where the well is closing during a few days; and then flowing back and/or pumping stage during
some months according to: steam volume injected, reservoir properties, well operational conditions, well
performance, among others. When the oil rate declines and reaches a similar point to the oil rate before the
injection, then it is time to initiate a new steam cycle. The process is presented in Figure 2.
SPE-181198-MS 3

Figure 2—Stage of the CSS process (Stark, 2011).

A typical life span of CSS has eight or twelve cycles (Liu, 2012). The process efficiency and oil
incremental is reducing during successive steam cycles; consequently, it is necessary to inject higher steam
volume (Figure 3). According to Gallant (1993), with each successive cycle, longer time periods are required
for oil (or bitumen) production rates to ramp up to peak levels.

Figure 3—Oil rate by cycles (Alvarado, 2002).

Main mechanisms present in the oil recovery by cyclic steam injection are: viscosity reducing by
temperature increase (Figure 4), solution gas drive, formation compaction by increase pressure around the
well and gravity drainage.
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Figure 4—Viscosity vs. Temperature.

In early cycles, formation compaction is the dominant drive mechanism, but it quickly decreases as
cycle's progress. Solution gas drive is the second most important drive mechanism in early cycles and its
contribution increases, making it the dominant drive mechanism during the middle cycles. In late cycles,
as the reservoir temperature rises, gravity drainage and steam flashing become increasingly important drive
mechanisms and eventually dominate the CSS process (Gallant, 1993).

Antiswelling Agent
At the begin of the process, wells did not receive enough steam to increase production; then was necessary
to carry out sensibility analysis to the shale content and its reaction with the steam and also fix steam
characteristics to improve injectivity. Due to the high clay content in the reservoir under study, a clay
characterization and an evaluation of antiswelling agent was developed.
The result of XRD analysis of reservoir shown a 10% as average of clay mineral content. This mineral
content is 80% water sensitive. When steam is injected (480 °F), permeability drop 50% due to water
sensitive. Different antiswelling agents were tested in lab until obtain a permeability reduction near to 2%,
Table 1. According to these studies all the wells are steam injected with a previous slug of antiswelling
agent (inhibiting clay) to avoid formation damage.

Table 1—Antiswelling Agent

Initial Post Damage

Core Porosity % Damage Rate %
Permeablity (mD) Permeability (mD)

1-1 1009.74 28.65 985.67 2.38

2-1 1034.64 28.71 1012.41 2.64

Low Injectivity Wells

In the oilfield under analysis, exists a group of wells that did not receive the scheduled amount of steam,
because the pressure injection achieve values above which can operate a typical steam generator (1200 psi),
due to various reasons such as high reservoir pressure or formation damage.
In order to control this phenomenon during the steam injection, it is possible to implement strategies like
using steam generators with higher pressure setting, although this option requires that lines, connections
and wellheads be designed to work with this pressure generator. A second option to increase the volume of
SPE-181198-MS 5

injection, is to inject a diluent slug such as diesel, in order to reduce viscosity and clean the well and the
face of the formation so that the steam inlet provided to the site.
For example, in Figure 5, the case of a well that in its first three cycles received over 2,000 MMBTU
occurs. In the fourth cycle a diesel slug was used and 5000 MMBTU were injected, showing the
effectiveness of the process to improve the injectivity of the well. In a subsequent cycle, the well received
4792 MMBTU. In Table 2, a summary of the response of the injection cycles is shown.

Figure 5—Slug Diluent Injection.

Table 2—Low Injectivity Example

INCREMENTAL
CYCLE MMBTU/CYCLE BWE/CYCLE OSR
OIL (BLS)

1 1887 5095 3450 0.68

2 2055 5549 3340 0.6

3 2132 5756 2028 0.4

4 5058 13657 10350 0.76

A third option for wells with low injectivity when a diluent is not available is to reduce the steam quality.
If steam quality is reduced, pressure in the bottom of the well increase and is possible inject more steam
volume. Steam quality increase with the cycles until reach normal values (80%). Table 3 shows an example
of a well with low steam quality injection since cycle 8 and the increase of steam volume injection.
6 SPE-181198-MS

Table 3—Low Steam Quality Injection

Methodology to Select CSS Well Candidates

Six criteria have been established to determinate the well status in a CSS process: oil production rate, water
cut, wellhead temperature, pump submergence and mechanical status. These variables have been located in
a diagram (Figure 6) to determinate if a well must be injected according to its current conditions (Trigos,
2014). The next well status has been identified:

Figure 6—CSS – well status diagram

SPE-181198-MS 7

Recently Injected. The main characteristics of this status are high temperature, high water cut and low
oil rate.
Hot Production. The well reached its maximum production. Oil rate is higher than 125% of the cold oil
rate. The duration of the hot production period is according to well potential and steam volume injected.
Cool Down. Oil rate is lower than 125% of the cold oil rate, but higher than the cold oil rate. These wells
must be included in the injection schedule, because in a short time they're going to reach the cold oil rate.
Cold Production. Oil rate is similar or lower than cold oil rate, low water cut, low temperature and low
submergence. These wells have to be injected as soon as possible to increase oil production.
Water Production Increasing. Common in wells with more of five cycles, consequently with the water
saturation increase around wells, and also with the steam channeling in some cases. These kinds of wells
need a special injection schema like: selective injection, foam or nitrogen injection.
Artificial Lift with Low Efficiency. Oil rate is lower than cold oil rate, but they have an opportunity to
optimize the artificial lift system according to high submerge level.
A flow chart to select candidate wells to CSS was developed according to the criteria mentioned in the
last item, Figure 7. It is important to mention that each well has a cold oil rate according to its potential.
Values of oil rate and water cut should be read of the last production test. The temperature is read in head
well every day.

Figure 7—Methodology to select CSS candidate

Following this further, Table 4 is an example of status of some wells according to methodology in Figure
7. Cold oil rate take values from 15 to 60 bopd.
8 SPE-181198-MS

Table 4—Methodology to select CSS candidate

After select the CSS candidates, it's important to establish the ranking of injection according to variables
like: hot production peak, steam oil ratio (SOR), hot production period, historical oil rate average or
cumulative production. In this case, incremental cumulative oil production by cycle is the prioritization
variable. Four prioritization ranges are defined statistically using quartiles, like in the Figure 8. The
prioritization changes according to the wells candidate. In other words, a well can be priority one in a group
of well, but priority 2 in other group of wells.

Figure 8—Prioritization of CSS candidate

SPE-181198-MS 9

Nitrogen + Steam Injection

Given that the answer to the cyclic steam injection has declined significantly in some wells due to number
of cycles, a pilot project to assess the feasibility of injecting nitrogen accompanied cyclic steam was raised.
The determination of optimum volumes and injection scheme by numerical simulation was performed in
a single well sector model.
Eleven schemes of steam + nitrogen injection were evaluated. In all schemes it was tested remained
constant volume of injected steam (except 2, corresponding to nitrogen injection only), while the volume
of nitrogen varied according to the scheme (pre-injection, post-injection, co-injection or a combination of
the above). Table 5 presents the cases evaluated, discarding those that according to the simulation results in
Figure 9 show a lower base case (only steam) production, which is highlighted in red in Table 5. In all cases
the injection of nitrogen according to real drive capacity 1200 m3/hour (1017072 ft3/day) was assumed.

Table 5—Nitrogen + Steam Injection Schemes.

10 SPE-181198-MS

Figure 9—Throwaway injection schemes.

Figure 10 presents the results of cases with production increase over the base case, including the case
10 as the highest incremental oil production. This case corresponds to start injecting only one day with
nitrogen, followed by five days of co-injection and ending with a single nitrogen day. Under this scheme an
incremental production of 5642 barrels of oil a trial period of one year, with average oil production of 53
BOPD in the same period and maximum rate of 142 BOPD, according to Figure 11 is obtained.

Figure 10—Results Steam + Nitrogen Injection

SPE-181198-MS 11

Figure 11—Best Case Steam + Nitrogen Injection

According to the simulation results, it was decided to implement the pilot steam + nitrogen injection,
following the best injection scheme given above; that is, a day of pre-injection (nitrogen only), five days
of co-injection (steam + nitrogen) and one day post-injection (nitrogen only). The results of the pilot are
presented in Figure 12, where it can observed that oil production has increased compared to previous cycles,
reaching similar results to those of third stimulation cycle.

Figure 12—Pilot Implementation: Steam + Nitrogen.

12 SPE-181198-MS

Infill Drilling
A new opportunity index expression was used to identify the reservoir zones with best static and dynamic
properties using the information available in a numerical simulation model according to Ec. 3 (Trigos, 2015).
Ec. 3
Where,
IKH = K * Thichness * NTG
IMDOV = (Soinitial - Socurrent) * HCPV
IPD = Pinitial - Pcurrent
ICNP = Connected Net Pay
Once the opportunity index is calculated, cell by cell, in the simulation model, values are normalized
and grouped by layers to obtain an O.I. map (Figure 13). Map values are plotted in a frequency distribution
diagram, Figure 14. According to this opportunity index cut offs are fixed. In this case, opportunity index
equal or greater than 0.42 to design infill development scenario were used.

Figure 13—Opportunity Index Map.

SPE-181198-MS 13

Figure 14—Opportunity Index Frequency Distribution.

According to the modified opportunity index methodology, an infill development plan with 60 new wells
(red points in Figure 15) was proposed. Production forecast shows an incremental net oil production near
to 7 MMBbl in eight years in Figure 15.

Figure 15—Production Forecast.

14 SPE-181198-MS

Selective Injection
The reservoir on study produce from two main groups of sands where net to gross is very low, near to 0.3.
These sands are separated by a non-permeable geological unit. The two producer sands B and C are not
continuous, they are interstratified with high shale presence, sand B is divided in 5 producer zones and sand
C in two producer zones.
When steam is injected in a well, there is not a uniform distribution in all de sands; then, there is necessary
to determinate the steam injection distribution by sands. For this reason, pressure logs in new infill wells and
fiber optic log in old wells were taken and analyzed. Fiber optic and pressure logs are useful to determine
which sands have produced more than others. Also, this information is key to plan selective injection.
In new wells completion schemes have been changed to included thermal packers that allow selective
injection by sands. The thermal packer location were determined according to temperature and pressure
information. Figure 16 is a scheme of selective injection system.

Figure 16—Selective Injection System

Conclusions
Modified opportunity index allowed selecting and ranking locations for 60 new infill wells in the area with
the best prospective in Moriche Field Phase I.
SPE-181198-MS 15

A simulation sector model was used to design the steam with nitrogen injection scheme. The pilot was
implemented in the field with good results.
A methodology for selecting and prioritizing candidate wells to cyclic steam stimulation in heavy oil
reservoirs is developed.
The proposed methodology can be applied in any field of heavy crude scheme developed under cyclic
steam stimulation; its usefulness will increase in parallel with the number of active wells that are in the field.

Acknowledgments
Authors thank Ecopetrol and Mansarovar for providing the necessary tools and information to develop this
project.

Nomenclature
BOPD = Barrels Oil per day.
ICNP = Connected Net Pay Index.
IPD = Pressure Delta Index.
IKH = Flow Oil Capacity Index.
IMDOV = Mobile Delta Oil Volume
MMBbl = Million barrels.
O.I.NDR = Opportunity Index to No Depleted Reservoir.
OOIP = Original Oil in Place.
So = Current Oil saturation.

Conversion Factors
 Bbl × 1.589873 E-01 = m3
ft × 3.048 = m

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