JOGMEC-TRC

Reservoir Engineering Course

Lecture 8: Recovery Method (1)

March, 2022

Lecturer: Hisanao Ouchi

Japan Oil Engineering Co., Ltd.

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 Introduction
 Oil recovery methods are mainly categorized
Primary into the three types.
Natural Drive
Recovery
 Primary
Artificial Lift
 Secondary
 Tertiary (or Enhanced Oil Recovery)
Secondary
Recovery Water Flooding
 At the initial stage of oil production in a
Gas Immiscible Flooding conventional oil reservoir, oil automatically
flows from the reservoir to the surface due to
Tertiary
Recovery
Thermal Recovery the pressure difference between the reservoir
Chemical Flooding pressure and the well bottomhole pressrue. This
(Enhanced Oil Recovery)
Gas Miscible Flooding type of production (= an oil production without
Others adding any energy to target reservoir) is called
“primary recovery.”
However, oil production rate easily decreases in
accordance with the reservoir pressure
reduction in the primary recovery.

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 Introduction (2)
 So, at the second stage of oil production, oil is
produced with supporting reservoir pressure
Primary
Recovery
Natural Drive by injecting water/gas. These types of
recoveries are called “secondary recovery.”
Artificial Lift

 At the third stage of oil production, more oil

Secondary
Recovery Water Flooding production is attempted by improving
physical/chemical properties of oil by injecting
Gas Immiscible Flooding
heat/chemical substances/gas. These types of
recoveries are called “tertiary recovery.”
Tertiary Thermal Recovery
Recovery
Chemical Flooding But, in recent years, these types of recovery
(Enhanced Oil Recovery)
Gas Miscible Flooding methods are often applied to certain types of
reservoirs without applying secondary recovery. So,
Others
these types of recoveries are more often called
“enhanced oil recovery (EOR)” in recent years.

In this series of lectures (recovery method (1) – (3)), the overviews of the oil
recovery methods shown above are introduced.

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 Primary
Natural Drive
Recovery

Artificial Lift

Secondary
Recovery Water Flooding

Gas Immiscible Flooding

Tertiary Thermal Recovery

Primary Recovery
Recovery
Chemical Flooding
(Enhanced Oil Recovery)
Gas Miscible Flooding
Others

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 Natural Drive: Introduction
When drilling a well in a oil reservoir, oil is automatically produced since oil density (which is
related to bottom hole pressure) is lighter than water density (which is related to the
hydrostatic pressure). It is called “natural drive.”
 Since the driving mechanism of natural
drives is the pressure difference between the
reservoir and the well bottom hole pressure,
no artificial energy is needed to be added for
the production.
 However, in the cases of natural drives, oil
production rate gradually decreases with
reservoir pressure reduction.

The natural drives are mainly categorized

into the following five types.
Stress Stress  Solution Gas Drive
 Gas Cap Drive
Cap Rock
 Water Drive
Stress Stress
 Depletion
 Combination Drive
Water Impermeable Layer

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Natural Drive (1) Solution Gas Drive

Oil Production

Liberating Solution Gas

Gas Expansion (Reservoir pressure

reduction during oil production is
subdued by gas expansion.)

Gas Oil Ratio

=Gas Production Rate/Oil Production Rate

Cap Rock

Pressure
Water Impermeable Layer

Small Aquifer or No Aquifer

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Natural Drive (2) Gas Cap Drive

Oil Production

Gas Expansion in Gas Cap

(Relatively stronger pressure support
than solution gas drive is expected.)

Gas Oil Ratio

Pressure
Cap Rock

Water Impermeable Layer

Time
Small Aquifer or No Aquifer

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 Natural Drive (3) Water Drive

Oil Production

Water Invasion from (Large) Aquifer

(= Strong Pressure Support than Others)

* But, water cut may rapidly increase.

Pressure

Cap Rock
Gas Oil Ratio

Water Impermeable Layer

Time
Large Aquifer Large Aquifer

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Natural Drive (4) Depletion

If bubble point pressure of the oil in

the target reservoir is very low,
Oil Production

No Liberating Solution Gas

(Less Pressure Support)

Rapid Reservoir Pressure Reduction

Pressure
Cap Rock

Gas Oil Ratio

Water Impermeable Layer
No more production

Small Aquifer or No Aquifer

Time

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 Natural Drive (5) Combination

Reservoir pressure reduction during

oil production is subdued (in other
words, the energy for oil drainage is
kept) by more than one of natural
drive mechanisms.

Cap Rock

Water Impermeable Layer

Large Aquifer Large Aquifer

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Artificial Lift
 Even in the case of strong water drive reservoir, reservoir
pressure cannot be completely kept for a long time.

 Roughly speaking, if the reservoir pressure decreases below the

static fluid pressure as shown below (in other words, if
reservoir pressure becomes too low to lift up fluids from the
reservoir to the surface), fluid production stops from the well.

H Pres > ρ gH Flow

Pres ≤ ρ gH No Flow

Pres
ρ gH

In order to keep producing oil even under the condition above (= Pres ≤ ρ gH
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), one of the artificial lift methods is often applied.
 Artificial Lift: Pumping
Even if Pres ≤ ρ gH , production can continue
due to pressure support by the pump

Pressure

Pressure Increase
by Pump

depth
Electric Submersible Sucker Rod Pump
Pump (ESP) Pump Using Surface Pumping Unit
(Basic Mechanism = Hand Pump) Reservoir Pressure
Pump Using Electrical Motor
(Mainly used in high
permeability reservoirs)

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Artificial Lift: Gas Lift
Pressure
Average fluid density in
the well is decreased by
injecting gas from gas

depth
lift valves.

Pres > ρ gas _ lift gH

Reservoir Pressure

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 Ordinary Recovery Factor after
Primary Recovery
Even after applying artificial lift methods, ordinary recovery factor after applying the primary
recovery method is less than 30% at best since oil production rate rapidly decrease in
accordance with pressure reduction due to fluid production.

Primary recovery
Oil Type
(% of oil in place)
Extra heavy 1–5
Heavy 1 – 10
Medium 5 – 30
Light 10 - 40

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Example of Primary Recovery
Prediction Study for the Hypothetical Oil Field
Natural Depletion
Time : 2001-01-01 (Initial)

Producer
Water Injector

Oil Saturation (fraction) Field Performances

 Anticline type of reservoir  6 producers
 Water drive

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Prediction Study for the Hypothetical Oil Field
Natural Depletion
Time : 2005-01-01
Oil Production Pressure
Rate
Producer
Water Injector

Oil Saturation (fraction) Field Performances

 Additional 5 producers

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Prediction Study for the Hypothetical Oil Field
Natural Depletion
Time : 2009-01-01
Oil Production Pressure
Rate
Producer
Water Injector

Oil Saturation (fraction) Field Performances

17
Prediction Study for the Hypothetical Oil Field
Natural Depletion
Time : 2013-01-01
Oil Production Pressure
Rate
Producer
Water Injector

Oil Saturation (fraction) Field Performances

18
Prediction Study for the Hypothetical Oil Field
Natural Depletion
Time : 2017-01-01
Oil Production Pressure
Rate
Producer
Water Injector

Oil Saturation (fraction) Field Performances

19
Prediction Study for the Hypothetical Oil Field
Natural Depletion
Time : 2021-01-01
Oil Production Pressure
Rate
Producer
Water Injector

Oil Saturation (fraction) Field Performances

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 Prediction Study for the Hypothetical Oil Field
Still a lot of oil
remains in the
Natural Depletion
Time : 2024-01-01 (Final)
reservoir after Oil Production
primary recovery Pressure
Rate
due to lack of
oil drainage Producer
Water Injector
energy even in
water drive
reservoir.

Oil Saturation (fraction) Field Performances

In accordance with average pressure reduction, the total oil
production rate rapidly decreases in this field.

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Summary
Oil recovery methods are mainly categorized into the three
types. (primary, secondary, and tertiary (or, EOR(enhanced
oil recovery)))
Primary recovery method is the recovery method where no
artificial force is added to the target reservoir. So, artificial
lifts such as pumping and gas lift are still included into the
primary recovery method.
Ordinary recovery factors after applying the primary recovery
method in most of reservoirs are less than 30% at best since
sufficient production energy (=reservoir pressure) cannot be
kept.

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