Waterflood

PE3201 Enhanced Oil Recovery

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Outline
 Buckley-Laverett for waterflood
 Analysis and configuration of well injection patterns for waterflood
 Calculation of displacement and areal
 Other waterflood model

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Buckley-Laverett
1D Oil-Water Displacement

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Steady Solution: Laboratory Capillary-End Effect

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Unsteady-Solution: Frontal Advance Displacement

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PE3201 – Enhanced Oil Recovery 0 – Welcome to Class 6

Frontal Advance Theory vs Edge Water Encroachment

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Fractional Flow

Assuming low capillary pressure gradient

Horizontal displacement

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Fractional Flow

Effect of Viscosity and Wettability

 Regardless wettability, higher
oil viscosity will result in less
efficient displacement
performance
 Earlier breakthrough
 More injected PV to achieve
certain RF
 Lower RF at certain WOR
 Water-wet rock have better
displacement efficiency

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Fractional Flow

Effect of Inclination
 Regardless rock wettability,
downdip water injection will
result in less efficient
displacement process
 Regardless wettability, better
displacement efficiency in
various inclination
 Down-dip displacement 
higher injection rate
 Up-dip displacement  lower
injection rate

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Buckley Laverett

At Breakthrough
Injected Water (PV, dimensionless)

Constant Injected Water (ft3)

Injection Rate
(bbl/d)
Pore Volume (ft3)

Cumulative Oil Produced Np (bbl)

Breakthrough Time (day)

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Buckley-Laverett

After Breakthrough Injected Water (PV, dimensionless)

Constant Injected Water (ft3)

Injection Rate
(bbl/d)
Pore Volume (ft3)

Cumulative Oil Produced Np (bbl)

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Buckley-Laverett

Linear Waterflood at Constant Flowrate

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Buckley-Laveret

Example

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Other Linear Displacement

Comparison with Constant-Pressure Waterflood

 Related with apparent or effective
viscosity of the oil and water at any Sw

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Other Linear Displacement

Linear Waterflood With a Mobile Initial Water Saturation

Flood front is formed

Flood front is NOT formed

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Other Linear Displacement

Linear Waterflood in Depleted Reservoir

Trapped gas is formed Trapped gas re-dissolved in oil bank

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2D Areal Displacement

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Well Pattern

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PE3201 – Enhanced Oil Recovery 0 – Welcome to Class 19

Characteristic of Injection Pattern

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Displacement in 5-Spot Pattern

 In a very large homogeneous reservoir, all patterns (almost) have no boundary

 The ratio between producers and injectors (for 5-spot pattern) approach 1
 Analysis of whole field waterflood performance can be simplified to a single pattern, even more “a
single quadrants” due to symmetricity

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PE3201 – Enhanced Oil Recovery 0 – Welcome to Class 21

Laboratory Works on 5-Spot Pattern

 This is typical displacement performance for 5-Spot
pattern
 Data from laboratory works using sandpack
(simulating “a quadrant”)
 Variation of water-oil viscosity ratio

 Many researchers had attempted to have

correlation of displacement performance from
laboratory works
 Aimed to described three stages of waterflood (i.e.
before, during, and after breakthrough)
 Nearly all laboratory works are performed using
miscible fluids  focus on geometry effect (and
viscous force); neglect capillary forces
 Thus, a very limited application because waterflood
is immiscible

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The CGM Laboratory Experiment

 Craig-Geffen-Morse
conducted experiment using
immiscible oil and water
system
 Using sandpack with proper
scaling of viscous and
capillary forces  we now
have saturation gradient
 Constructing empirical
correlations to describe areal
sweep efficiency

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The CGM Correlations

 y-axis: areal sweep efficiency at
and after breakthrough
 x-axis: ratio of volume injected
to volume injected at
breakthrough

Dyes et al. data use miscible flood

Ea: fraction of area that has been swept Note:

• Correlation between Ea and W i/Wibt
to an average water saturation 𝑆𝑤 • Each line for specific oil-water system

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PE3201 – Enhanced Oil Recovery 0 – Welcome to Class 24

The CGM Correlations

 y-axis: Areal sweep
efficiency at breakthrough
 x-axis: Mobility ratio 𝑀 (or
total mobility ratio 𝑀 )
 In good agreement with
other experiments by other
authors

𝑀 ̅ : Mobility ratio at average water saturation behind front

Caution: Valid for 𝑀 ̅ range from 0.16 to 10

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Prediction Method
 Describing three stages of waterflood

Before breakthrough At breakthrough After breakthrough

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Areal Sweep Efficiency Prediction Method

Before Breakthrough
 Before breakthrough  injected volume 𝑊 is equal to oil produced volume 𝑁

Injected volume

Average water saturation

from frontal advance displacement

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PE3201 – Enhanced Oil Recovery 0 – Welcome to Class 27

Areal Sweep Efficiency Prediction Method

At Breakthrough
 From CGM correlation
(1955)
 Or we can calculate

𝑁
𝐸 =
𝑃𝑉 𝑆𝑤 − 𝑆𝑤

Average water saturation

from frontal advance displacement

𝑀 ̅ : Mobility ratio at average water saturation behind front

Caution: Valid for 𝑀 ̅ range from 0.16 to 10

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Areal Sweep Efficiency Prediction Method

After breakthrough
From Dyes et al. (miscible system) From CGM (immiscible oil-water)

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Areal Sweep Efficiency

After Breakthrough (using graph)

Fractional Flow Curve
1 We got the trendline after breakthrough
0.8
Fractional Flow of Water (fw)

0.6
Read 𝐸𝑎
0.4

0.2

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Water Saturation (Sw)

At 𝑆𝑤 calculate M

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Areal Sweep Efficiency

Example

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Other Waterflood Models

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Other Waterflood Model

CGM Method in Depleted Reservoir

 Stage 1 is the period of radial
flow until oil bank formed and
interference happen
 Stage 2 is the period from
interference until fillup of the
pre-existing gas space. Fill up
is the start of oil production
Response.
 Stage 3 is the period from
fillup to water breakthrough.
 Stage 4 is the period from
water breakthrough to
floodout

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Other Waterflood Model

Streamtube Model

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Other Waterflood Model

Capacitance-Resistance-Model

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