IPTC 13329

Screening of EOR Processes for the Kharaib B Reservoir of the Giant Al

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Shaheen field, Offshore Qatar
Søren Frank, Paul van Lingen, Kristian Mogensen/ Maersk Oil, Rashed Noman, Qatar Petroleum

Copyright 2009, International Petroleum Technology Conference

This paper was prepared for presentation at the International Petroleum Technology Conference held in Doha, Qatar, 7–9 December 2009.

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Abstract
This paper describes the enhanced oil recovery (EOR) studies conducted for the low permeability Kharaib B carbonate
reservoir of the Al Shaheen field, located offshore Qatar. The reservoir is characterised by large lateral variation in oil
properties (Lindeloff et al., 2008), lateral uniformity in geological and petrophysical properties over large distances, a
relatively thin oil column in a transition zone, and the presence of local gas caps. The Kharaib B reservoir is currently
undergoing water-flooding, which is reaching maturity in parts of the field.

The EOR screening process will be described together with the performed experimental programs and the results of the
calculations performed to reduce the uncertainty in assessment of the efficiency of various recovery processes. Four EOR
processes were evaluated in the screening study: gas injection (hydrocarbon gas and CO2), alkaline-surfactant-polymer
flooding, microbial EOR, and air injection.

In the process of qualifying the EOR processes, a 6-month gas injection trial was performed to determine whether the degree
of reservoir heterogeneity was as predicted. The results from the gas injection trial showed no premature breakthrough of gas.
Furthermore, the modelling studies and the enhanced oil recovery potential for the different studied processes are presented
with results showing that the microbial EOR process is currently not considered an applicable EOR process, whereas the
remaining EOR processes could be beneficial from a subsurface point of view with gas injection showing greatest potential.
Evaluations of the feasibility of implementing each of the EOR processes in the offshore environment are discussed.

Introduction
The Al Shaheen field is one of the giant oil fields of the Middle East situated in Block 5, offshore Qatar (Figure 1). Maersk
Oil has been developing the field with Qatar Petroleum since 1992 with start-up of production in 1994 and implementation of
water injection in 1996 (Thomasen et al., 2005). The Kharaib B reservoir is one of the five producing reservoirs in the Al
Shaheen field and it has been producing since the production start-up in 1994. Water flooding is mature in parts of the fields
where injection water breakthrough has been observed in producing wells. The development philosophy of the Kharaib B
reservoir centres on long horizontal wells, the older wells placed in radial well patterns and the newer wells in parallel line
drive patterns of alternating water injectors and oil producers. Well placement is designed to avoid fractured regions within
graben zones of the reservoir. The successful placement of the wells outside fractured zones is confirmed by the good water
flood performance of the injector-producer pairs with high oil recovery and only few short circuits of injection water into
producing wells.

The Kharaib B reservoir is characterised by a thin oil column (up to 80 ft), low permeability in the range 1-10 md and lateral
continuous layering extending more than 25 km across the field. The geological and petrophysical characteristics of the
reservoir correlate well within the field with the carbonate rock in the best producing parts of the formation being oil-wet to
mixed-wet whereas the deeper layers and reservoir flanks are mixed-wet to water-wet.

The PVT properties of the oil exhibit large lateral variations, with oil gravities ranging from 16 to 38 °API. A minor part of
the Kharaib B reservoir has a gas cap; however, there are large variations in solution gas-oil ratio (GOR) and saturation
2 IPTC 13329

pressures. A hypothesis for the origin of the complex fluid variations observed is that the reservoir has been charged by
separate oil pulses followed by gas influx and biodegradation.

Further development studies focus on expansion of the current water flood scheme. In 2006 an EOR screening study was
initiated to identify the options for enhancing oil recovery beyond water flooding by introducing EOR processes new to the
Al Shaheen field. The first phase of the screening study involved a literature review and initial screening using the criteria
summarised by Taber et al. (1997a,b). Four processes were identified as having potential to enhance the recovery from the
Kharaib B reservoir: Gas injection with either hydrocarbon or CO2 gases, alkali-surfactant-polymer (ASP) flooding, in-situ

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combustion and microbial EOR.

This paper describes the further screening of the selected EOR processes presenting an approach where experimental data and
an early pilot study were introduced to better understand the applicability of the processes to the Kharaib B reservoir.
Particularly, the large variation in fluid properties justified more elaborate laboratory investigations of the applicability of the
EOR processes to the different parts of the reservoir.

Gas Injection
From a subsurface point of view the initial screening identified gas injection with either hydrocarbon gas or CO2 to be one of
the more promising EOR processes for the Kharaib B reservoir. Both the relatively low temperature of the reservoir and the
oil properties favour gas injection potentially in the form of water alternating gas (WAG) injection. The fluid property
variations constitute a significant challenge in simulating current and future field performance; hence an experimental
program to gather the required PVT data was initiated. Also, the reservoir characterisation should be well understood to
identify possible high permeability conduits that could negatively affect gas injection perofrmance. A gas injection pilot was
included in the data gathering program early in the screening process to determine whether the reservoir characterisation
should be re-visited. In the following the work to define these important elements - phase behaviour and reservoir
characterisation - of a gas injection project is described.

PVT Study
An extensive data gathering program was initiated back in 1992 to map out variations in API gravity, saturation pressure and
GOR. The API gravity has been inferred from oil extracted from drill cuttings in a number of wells and some 500 oil samples
(surface samples as well as downhole samples) have been acquired. The comprehensive PVT study by Lindeloff et al. (2008)
was based on some 120 datasets with associated PVT data, spanning the range of fluid properties observed in the field.

The experimental data used for the equation-of-state (EOS) modelling involved both PVT data from routine black-oil
analysis comprising constant-composition expansion (CCE), differential vaporisation (DV), oil viscosity measurements and
three-stage separator tests as well as the special gas injection experiments for EOR screening study.

Compositional analysis from gas chromatography (GC) was available for all oil samples included in the study. Rather than
relying on molecular weights from the well-known Katz and Firoozabadi (KF) correlation to convert the GC analysis weight
fraction compositions to mole fractions required by an EOS, true-boiling point distillation (TBP) was performed on four
samples covering an API gravity range from 18 to 35 °API. Results from the TBP analysis showed that the actual molecular
weights were lower than the standard KF values, and actual densities correspondingly higher, thereby confirming the more
aromatic nature of the Al Shaheen fluid system.

It is well established that PVT models tuned only to routine black oil analysis experiments in general are unreliable for
predicting phase behaviour involving injection of gas such as CO2 or hydrocarbon gases where the fluid mixtures can become
near-critical. To increase the ability to predict phase behaviour for crude oil systems undergoing gas injection a number of
specialized experiments were performed, including swelling tests (with CCE and viscosity measurements for various molar
ratios of added injection gas), slimtube displacements (for measurement of minimum miscibility pressure and minimum gas
enrichment) as well as backward multi-contact studies where the oil phase is mixed with fresh gas on each contact until no
further mass transfer occurs.

Special care was taken in designing high quality slimtube displacement experiments (Mogensen et al., 2009). First-contact
miscible displacements with iso-octane and paraxylene were performed to assure that the slimtube dispersion was low
enough to allow accurate determination of MMP and enrichment displacement floods.

Gas Injection Pilot

An important part of the EOR scope evaluation work was to conduct an early gas injection trial for a period of 6 months in
the Kharaib B reservoir to improve the understanding of the degree of reservoir, which is essential for a successful
implementation of a gas injection EOR project.
IPTC 13329 3

The key purposes of the trial were to investigate whether unexpected large-scale permeability heterogeneities were present in
the reservoir, to gather gas and water injectivity data, and to build experience for planning of potential future WAG injection
applications for the Al Shaheen field. Trial data would provide information about fluid injectivity and the impact of reservoir
heterogeneity on progression of the flood front and hopefully help answer two important questions:

1) Would premature catastrophic gas breakthrough occur in the neighbouring production wells located some 1,000 ft away
within the first 6 months of injection?
2) Would water injectivity after the gas flood be reduced as a result of the presence of gas around the injection well?

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Mogensen et al. (2009, IPTC paper 13327) describe the planning, execution, and analysis phases of the gas injection trial in
greater detail. Well-1, shown on the map in Figure 2, was selected as the trial well. It was drilled in 2006 in a line-drive
pattern north-east of the Al Shaheen B-location platform, where the Kharaib B carbonate reservoir is known to be very
homogeneous and have a low fracture frequency and no major connective faults. A 12-month back-production period
lowered the average reservoir pressure around the well thereby ensuring that sufficient amounts of gas could be re-injected
into the well with the available gas-lift pressure.

Friction calculations showed that injection rates up to 15 MMscf/d could be achieved by injecting the gas, supplied via a 2-
inch lift gas line, directly into the tubing at the well-head. To be able to measure the gas injection rate accurately, the surface
piping was modified to include a 3-inch FCV with an orifice plate connected to the existing 2” lift gas surface piping.

The daily data monitoring consisted of measuring the pressure at the wellhead, the outlet temperature from the gas
compression unit and the pressure drop across the FCV. The latter pressure drop was then converted to a gas injection rate.
Just prior to the start-up of the injection trial, the test frequency of the neighbouring production wells was increased to be able
to quickly pick any sign of premature gas breakthrough.

Downhole fluid samples were acquired with a formation sampling tool in June 2006 during drilling of Well-1. The oil gravity
was found to be 35 ˚API at both sampled stations, whereas the saturation pressure varied from some 900 psia in the inner part
to some 700 psia in the outer part.

The gas injection trial started early March 2008. Over a one month period, the gas injection rate was gradually increased in
steps of 1 MMscf/d. Between each rate increase, a 2-hour fall-off test was performed to correlate the friction pressure versus
rate. In May 2008, the FCV was fully open as a result of the controlled bean-up, and hence the gas injection rate started
declining. Early September, the rate had decreased to 8 MMscf/d and the 6-month gas injection trial was stopped, as planned.
Cumulative gas injection was 1.7 Bscf, corresponding to an average daily injection rate of 9 MMscf/d. With a gas formation
volume factor of 2.010-3 bbl/Mscf (average value at the estimated reservoir pressure), this average gas injection rate was
equivalent to a water injection rate of 18,000 bbl/d in terms of voidage replacement. After the gas injection trial, the well was
converted to water injection and the water injection rate was slowly ramped up to a target level of 10,000 bbl/d.

Water injectivity was estimated from Hall plot analysis. To provide a meaningful comparison between nearby injection wells,
the cumulative water injection is expressed per 1,000 ft of reservoir section to account for differences in effective well length
between the wells. It was concluded that 6 months of gas injection did not have a noticeable impact on the subsequent water
injection performance in Well-1 and more importantly no catastrophic gas breakthrough was observed in the trial period.
With a total cost not exceeding 100,000 USD, the trial proved to be a very cost-effective way of assessing the applicability of
gas injection in the Kharaib B reservoir.

Modelling Study
A number of static sector models were constructed with 14–15 grid cells between injector/producer pairs resulting in a
20x100m grid increment. The 14 geological units were sub-divided into 24 vertical layers with a constant number of layers
within each sub-grid.

The main purpose of the sector models was to evaluate the impact of various injection gases on sweep efficiency in different
parts of the reservoir. Results from the PVT study clearly indicated that significant mass transfer takes place at elevated
injection pressures; hence it was decided to construct compositional models with a 10-component EOS to describe the phase
behaviour of the reservoir fluids.

A petrophysics toolbox was used to generate cell properties of permeability, initial water saturation, and tables of relative
permeability and capillary pressure for oil/water and gas/oil. Corey-type functions were used to describe the saturation-
dependency of relative permeability, whereas the capillary pressure curves were based on the concept of equivalent radius,
see Engstrøm (1995). A limited, representative sub-set of Kr-Pc tables was created and then the most appropriate table was
assigned to each cell. A trial-and-error approach showed that some 10,000 tables (5,000 drainage curves and 5,000 imbibition
4 IPTC 13329

curves) were sufficient, regardless of the number of actual grid cells.

Due to large lateral variation in fluid properties across the reservoir, the fluid composition is not uniform. A fluid
composition predictor, using contoured maps of oil gravity, solution gas-oil ratio and saturation pressure as input, was
constructed to map the change in fluid composition across the entire field. The resulting fluid composition variation was then
used as input for the compositional sector model.

The Kharaib B reservoir is a tight carbonate reservoir characterised by a tilted free water level (FWL), a large transition zone,

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and presence of paleo oil. Therefore, equilibrium initialisation was not an option for this sector model, as it would have
wrongly redistributed the fluid saturations assuming one, constant FWL. Instead, the non-equilibrium initialisation option
was used, which required explicit values of water saturation, pressure, and fluid composition for each cell, in addition to the
Kr-Pc tables mentioned earlier.

The modelling studies indicated that enhancement of oil recovery in the 5-18% range can be achieved, in line with industry
experience.

Air Injection
The air injection process is not widely applied as EOR method in oil fields and the few successful implementations are
limited to onshore field developments. The Buffalo Field development of low permeability carbonates is an example of an air
injection development where horizontal wells are now drilled to further enhance the recovery of this mature asset where air
has been injected over 30 years (Gutierrez et al., 2009).

In the screening of air injection, laboratory testing was performed to investigate whether the Al Shaheen crude oil would
ignite under reservoir conditions and whether oxygen-addition or bond-scission reactions would be the dominating process
when injecting air. Air injection is made up of two types of oxidation reactions:

 Oxygen-addition reactions that occur when molecules of oxygen chemically combine with the hydrocarbon, giving
a heavier, oxygenated hydrocarbon product.
 Bond-scission reactions that are the traditional combustion reactions where oxygen and hydrocarbons react to
produce carbon oxides, water and heat.

Bond-scission reactions are much more effective at mobilizing in-situ oil and represent the desired operating state for air
injection based oil recovery processes (Moore et al., 1998). In light and medium gravity crude oils, oxygen-addition reactions
are believed to be dominant in the 100 to 150ºC range, and bond-scission reactions are dominant in the 150 to 300ºC range.
Exothermic heat generated in the liquid phase addition reactions appears to be the ignition source for the bond scission
reactions. For heavy oils, oxygen-addition reactions are dominant from the initial temperature to 300ºC range and bond-
scission reactions are dominant in the 350 to 700ºC range. In both cases, the additional oil (in excess of the fraction burned)
is mobilized and displaced by the high-temperature heat wave from the bond-scission reactions resulting in additional oil
production over and above the waterflood or gas flood.

Air injection for the Kharaib B reservoir was screened by performing accelerating rate calorimeter (ARC) tests of four crude
oils covering the API gravity range of oils in the Kharaib B reservoir with and without core material. The ARC tests were
designed to assess the reaction characteristics of the oil samples with air in a closed system starting at reservoir conditions.
The tests involved a heat-wait-search (HWS) process starting at the reservoir temperature and pressure followed by gradually
heating to 500°C. The temperature of the reaction cell was designed to ensure adiabatic conditions meaning that the cell
temperature was increased with the (exothermic) oil-air reaction.

An example of the ARC tests for the 20º API oil is shown in Figure 3. The similarity in the shapes of the temperature and
pressure profiles indicates that the observed pressure increase is primarily due to temperature rise in the closed gas filled cell.
During the rapid vapour phase reaction (stage 2 in Figure 3); the self-heat rate was too fast to be followed by the ARC
heating. However, the rapidity of the reaction also means that there is less time for heat transfer to the walls of the reaction
cell; hence, the system may still be near adiabatic.

All four crude oils showed good reactivity with air in the temperature range (150–300°C) associated with the desirable bond
scission reactions during in situ combustion of light oils, however, auto-ignition was very slow for the lightest oil (33.8º API)
indicating that an external heating source may be needed to get the process to run in the field. The presence of reservoir rock
enhanced the reactivity of the oils by lowering both the temperature for the on-set of the exothermic oil-air reaction and the
activation energy. Again the highest API oil sample that also had the highest saturates composition exhibited a slightly longer
delay in the initiation of the self heating in the presence of the native core matrix.
IPTC 13329 5

Spontaneous ignition during air injection into an oil reservoir is viewed as very desirable, since it simplifies process initiation
and substantially improves process stability. Laboratory auto ignition, or a temperature increase when the system is held at
reservoir conditions, is indicative of field auto ignition. However, the reservoir is a more perfect adiabatic environment and a
system may field auto ignite, even if it did not do so in the laboratory.

Further laboratory work involving high pressure ramped temperature oxidation in a combustion tube will have to be
performed to improve the numerical simulation of the combustion process. This medium scale test provides information on
the oxygen uptake rate at temperatures near that of the native reservoir under a more representative flow condition.

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Furthermore, facility and well engineering studies need to be undertaken to establish facility designs that will live up to the
high safety standards in offshore operations.

Chemical Flooding
Only one recorded case of chemical flooding in carbonates has been registered in the US with the polymer flooding in the
Yates field (Manrique et al., 2007). Alkali-surfactant-polymer floods have not yet been implemented in carbonate fields,
however, enhancing oil recovery in carbonates was researched by Adibathla and Mohanty (2008) showing that anionic and
non-ionic surfactants combined with an alkali could increase recovery in fractured low permeability carbonates by lowering
interfacial tension between oil and water as well as by changing wettability state from oil-wet to mixed-wet. The low flood
velocities in the Kharaib B reservoir, finding of suited polymers and the potential high adsorption of surfactants in carbonate
rocks are potential blockers for the field implementation of chemical EOR. A project was started to investigate the
applicability of existing surfactants and the potential of new chemical formulations for flooding of the Kharaib B reservoir.

The main objective of the surfactant studies was to find surfactant formulations that were compatible with Kharaib B
reservoir fluids (crude oil, formation water and injection water) and provide significant interfacial tension (IFT) reduction to
increase the capillary number and maximize oil recovery. The project investigated two distinct surfactant chemistries:
phosphate esters and sulfonates that were tested to work optimally at the Kharaib B reservoir salinity and temperature range
on a light and a heavy oil type. An important element in the design of the surfactant formulation was to minimize the
surfactant concentration (<0.5 wt %) while maintaining low IFT as well as limiting the surfactant adsorption onto the
carbonate rock surface. Additionally, a surfactant formulation would ideally be designed to work without the addition of co-
surfactants and co-solvents to enable simple operation of the surfactant flood at the offshore implementation stage and to
avoid “chromatographic effects” where the co-surfactant and/or co-solvent are transported at a velocity different from the
surfactant through the porous medium resulting in lower efficiency of the surfactant formulation.

The Al Shaheen injection water is sea water, which experimentally was shown to be incompatible with the use of alkalis such
as sodium carbonate (Na2CO3), sodium metaborate (NaBO2) and organic alkalis. The study work was thus focused on
creating a surfactant solution that would work without alkalis.

More than 300 surfactant formulations were tested to determine:

 surfactant solubility and its compatibility with injection water to prevent precipitation or plugging
 low IFT detection by identifying Winsor III micro-emulsion phase (Figures 3 and 4) and low IFT measurement
applying a micro-fluidics jet droplet transition technique (Guillot, 2007)
 adsorption on clean calcite powder with specific surface similar to Kharaib B carbonates (1.67 m2/g)

The phosphate esters provided low IFT over a wide range of salinities and temperature; however, based on the obtained
adsorption values of 3-4 mg/g in carbonates very large volumes of surfactants would be required to flood the entire reservoir
volume. The optimal blend was composed of two surfactants (0.1 % weight) with the same generic structure plus a co-solvent
(sec-butanol 13 g/l).

Alpha olefin sulfonates combined with ethoxy propoxy sulfonates resulted in an ultra-low IFT (<10-3 mN/m) with Kharaib B
crude oil and model sea water (~ 50 g/l). The microemulsion phase salinity range was narrow, however, no alkali were added
to the solution. Adsorption was low (< 0.5 mg/g) with these surfactants also considering that no alkali were used. The
experiments indicate that the surfactant concentration can be significantly further reduced while maintaining low IFT.

Surfactant flooding in tight carbonates such as the Kharaib B reservoir where the pore throat radius (r) is approximately 1 μm
would require a condition where an oil droplet would only be mobilised when the IFT (γ) is below a certain threshold defined
by setting the differential pressure from Darcy’s equation higher than the capillary pressure:

γ < 8·η·v·L/r
6 IPTC 13329

where η is displacing fluid viscosity, v is flow velocity and L is flow length. An example representative of the Kharaib B
reservoir using a displacement fluid viscosity of 1 cp, a flow velocity of 1 ft/d and flow length (capillary length) of 5 μm
would require that IFT should be less than 2.8·10-3 mN/m suggesting that the alpha olefin sulfonate surfactant formulation
could enhance the oil recovery from the Kharaib B reservoir.

The tested formulations are complex mixtures of surfactant, co-surfactant and co-solvent and rely on all components
travelling at the same flow rate through the reservoir. Further work will be conducted to optimise the formulation to lower the

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surfactant concentration while maintaining the low IFT. Additionally, core flooding experiments will be conducted with the
alpha olefin sulfonate to confirm the adsorption value and to measure oil recovery versus capillary number.

Microbial EOR
The work on microbial EOR consisted of a literature review and participation in a joint industry project (JIP) reported in
Gray et al. (2008).

The study considered potential mechanisms of microbially enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) that could feasibly enhance crude
oil recovery from a carbonate reservoir. The potential mechanisms investigated included: gas production, solvent production,
reduction in interfacial tension, permeability blockage and change in wettability induced by biological activity. For each of
the MEOR mechanisms the input requirements for nutrients and inoculum were calculated in relation to the incremental oil
yield. In each case a material balance was calculated for the incremental crude oil produced per unit of material added. These
calculations assumed the most optimistic case for transport of key components for each mechanism.

Microbial alterations in interfacial properties have been proposed many times for MEOR. Capillary number calculations
suggested that incremental oil recovery would be modest due to the IFT being almost two orders of magnitude higher than
what can be achieved with abiotic surfactants, and that the required amount of input material would be large in proportion to
the incremental recovery of crude oil. The physics of displacement of crude oil are identical, whether the surfactant is
produced chemically or biologically, therefore, biosurfactant production in situ faces the same fundamental limitations as
chemical surfactant flooding where low permeability rocks often cannot provide high enough capillary numbers. In addition,
the prospects for controlling the microbiology in the reservoir to achieve sustained surfactant production are poor. Key
variables are the adsorption of biosurfactants to reservoir rocks and the potential for in situ biodegradation of biosurfactants,
which in both cases are insufficienctly studied.

In oil-wet carbonates, a reversal of wettability due to biosurfactant production could increase oil recovery beyond simple
displacement. The wettability change would benefit very low permeability matrix like the Kharaib B reservoir, however, the
benefits of this mechanism are believed to be limited by the mass of surfactant required for each incremental barrel of oil. A
surfactant requirement of approximately 2.6 lb per incremental barrel of oil using a surfactant adsorption of 0.5 kg/tonnes and
an assumed enhanced oil recovery of 10% of OIIP was calculated. Assuming a well pattern with injector-producer spacing of
1,000 ft, 10,000 ft long wells and reservoir height of 100 ft with average porosity of 30% would result in a total surfactant
requirement of more than 15,000 tonnes, which is a large amount to inject even over a period of several years.

The gas production, solvent production, reduction in interfacial tension and wettability alteration mechanisms that required
changes to large volumes of reservoir material were not considered feasible in this study. The amount of input material was
not justified in proportion to the incremental oil recovery.

Plugging of fractures with bacteria and their polymeric by-products was one mechanism that was believed to carry some
promise of working as long as the fracture volume is small in comparison to the reservoir volume. In one of the few
published cases of successful MEOR treatment Fujiwara et al. (2004) define the biological and physical requirements to
ensure plugging of a high-permeability feature:

 Effective treatment requires the formation of a long-lasting flow barrier within the formation. The biomass material
that is formed must be resistant to degradation by the indigenous microbes; otherwise the treatment would be
required at frequent intervals.
 Addition of organisms to the reservoir is feasible, since the added microbes will tend to permeate the very high-flow
zones that are targeted. The organisms must be able to survive at the reservoir conditions of temperature and
salinity, and in the presence of the crude oil.
 The reservoir must have high permeability zones or fractures between injectors and producers that result in poor
sweep efficiency.
IPTC 13329 7

Proper operation of the waterflood injection is required, to ensure that the loss of injectivity due to plugging of fractures is
not counteracted by increasing the injection pressure.

An MEOR area of research is the stimulation of surface active bacteria in the reservoir that may have profound effects on the
flow of fluids by producing emulsion droplets of oil coated with bacteria (Dorobantu et al., 2004). These droplets will have
complex interactions with the pores in the reservoir. The formation of a biofilm of microbes at the oil water interface changes
the rheology of the interface, and may provide a useful mechanism to control mobility and areal sweep in reservoirs by
reducing the flow of water through high-permeability zones (Gray et al., 2008).

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Discussion
Early in the screening process it was clear that in the Kharaib B reservoir gas injection with hydrocarbon gas or CO2 showed
the largest potential for field implementation. The early gas injection pilot confirmed that no unidentified high permeability
features were present. High permeability conduits have proven detrimental in failed gas injection projects and the exclusion
of this parameter in the risk register gas injection is favoured. Furthermore, applying the EOS, developed from the extensive
gas PVT study, in compositional simulations indicated that both hydrocarbon gas and CO2 injection would be technically
viable processes to implement in the Kharaib B reservoir with incremental recovery of 5-18%.

A larger scale hydrocarbon gas injection project has been initiated with a target injection rate of 100 MMscfd hydrocarbon
gas into the Kharaib B reservoir.

The surfactant flooding showed that there is some potential in further studying this method. The measured surfactant
adsorption on carbonates of <0.5 mg/g and an assumed enhanced oil recovery of 10% of OIIP, however, would result in a
surfactant consumption of approximately 3 lb/incremental barrel of oil, which could become very costly. Additionally, there
is a significant challenge in synthesizing a surfactant formulation that will maintain an IFT of less than 1·10-3 mN/m without
alkali, co-solvents and co-surfactants, and finding a polymer that can be applied in low permeability carbonates for
conformance control of the surfactant flood. A field wide continuous surfactant flood in the Kharaib B is considered unlikely
and different strategies such as huff ‘n puff injection and/or an injection schemes involving injection of surfactant slugs could
be considered.

Air injection is still considered an immature EOR process for implementation in the offshore environment. Even though the
laboratory results from the ARC tests indicate that the combustion process could be maintained in the heavier oils of the
Kharaib B reservoir, introducing the process offshore would require much more detailed studies of the safety risks as well as
better numerical tools for predicting the behaviour of the flood.

Conclusion
The EOR screening study for the Kharaib B reservoir of the Al Shaheen field identified gas injection with either hydrocarbon
gas or CO2 as suitable EOR processes based on extensive laboratory and modelling work. A gas injection pilot was
performed confirming that no unidentified high permeability features were present in the current reservoir characterisation of
the Kharaib B reservoir. Based on the field trial results, a large-scale hydrocarbon gas injection project is planned to be
implemented in 2011.

Both the surfactant and air injection processes are at the current stage of screening considered to be unsuited for field wide
implementation in the Kharaib B reservoir. Further work is performed to improve the surfactant formulation to minimise
adsorption and to avoid the use of alkali, co-solvents and co-surfactants. Implementation of air injection in an offshore
environment needs to be studied in more detail and furthermore better numerical simulation tools are needed to predict
enhanced oil recovery due to air injection.

Microbial EOR is currently not considered a feasible EOR mechanism for the Kharaib B reservoir.

Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Qatar Petroleum and Maersk Oil Qatar AS for permission to publish this paper. The ARC tests
were performed and interpreted at the In Situ Combustion Research Laboratory at the University of Calgary.
8 IPTC 13329

References

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9

Figure 1. Al Shaheen Field location, Block 5, offshore Qatar.

QATAR
IPTC 13329

Figures
10 IPTC 13329

-3 650
-35
50
-3 600
-35 00

50 50
-34 -35

00
-37

-3 6
-3650
00
00

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-34
-3
-340

45
0

50
-34 00
0

-33
-33
50

-3
45
0 50

-35 00
-33 -36 50

-3 450
40
0 -34 00
-3

-34
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0

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0
30

-32
50

-325 0
00
-32
-3200

-3 20
0
-3200
-3 200
-33

-36-3 70
-3 45
00

50 0
0
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-320

-31
50
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20
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0
-335

-360
-3250 -3250
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0
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00
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-3 300
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-3

-3 350
30

50
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-3 3

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50
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Legend:

Kharaib B production wells

Well-1
Kharaib B water injection wells MAERSK OIL QATAR AS
Plugged reserv oir sections and sidetracks A L SHA HE E N FIE L D, B L O CK 5 DE V E LO P M E NT A RE A
Cemented liner sections
Exploration / Appraisal well K HA RA IB B RE S E RV OIR S E CTION
EX IS T ING WE L L S
Development loc ation FDP 2 0 0 5 T OP K HA RA IB B

P ROJE CT IO N:
NA HRWA N 1 9 6 7 (CL A RK E 1 8 8 0 ) UTM ZONE 3 9 N
C.I.: Da te
50 ft 0 4/1 0 /2 0 0 9

Figure 2. Location of trial well Well-1 in the Kharaib B reservoir.

IPTC 13329 11

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Figure 3. The upper panel describes the pressure development of the ARC test on the 19 API oil. The lower panel
describes the temperature development for the same ARC test. The numbers correspond to the different stages of the
ARC test. Stage 1 - pressurizing the charged reaction cell and heating it to initial reservoir condition; Stage 2 is the
first Heat-Wait-Search region; Stage 3 is an adiabatic self-heat follow-up followed by a search for self-heat at the end
of the adiabatic follow-up; Stage 4 is the second Heat-Wait-Search region in which no self-heating was detected for
this oil up to the maximum temperature of 500°C; and Stage 5 is the cool down.
12 IPTC 13329

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Figure 4. Middle phase microemulsion obtained with Kharaib B crude oil and a mixture of phosphate ester
surfactants (56°C with formation water).

Salt and divalent/monovalent

Temperature
Surfactant carbon numbers and branching
Co-solvent
Oil EACN and Branching
Oil viscosity
Organics
Oil API

Figure 5. Winsor classification of oil/water microemulsions. Winsor I: oil in water (o/w) microemulsion. Winsor II:
water in oil (w/o) microemulsion. Winsor III: middle phase microemulsion. Some of the parameters influencing the
phase behaviour are presented and in what direction an increase of each parameter would move the Winsor
microemulsion region.