Different techniques used

for oil recovery systems

Student Name: Abdelrahman Youssef Abdelnaeem

Student ID: (20220473)
Submitted to Dr: Waleed El-Azab
Submission Date: 30/3/2024
Diagrammatic Presentation of Oil Recovery
 Primary Recovery

Natural Flow
Artificial Lift
Primary recovery :
• Hydrocarbon production resulting from natural reservoir energy
Secondary recovery

Water Flooding Gas Injection

Secondary recovery
• Production of additional reserves via the introduction of artificial energy into the reservoir –
pressure maintenance, water floods.
Enhanced Oil Recovery Processes
♦Steam injection: The general principle of steam injection is to heat
heavy oil (reducing its viscosity) so that it flows more easily
into the well. In fact, some heavy oils will not flow at all unless
heated.
♦Combustion :Another method of recovering heavy oil is injecting air
into the reservoir and burning some portion of the oil underground. The
heat generated by the burning oil reduces the viscosity of the unburned
oil, thereby increasing production.
♦Miscible fluid displacement: Miscibility refers to the ability of the
injected and reservoir fluid to mix completely into one phase.
♦Polymer injection.
 Water Injection (Water flooding)
• Injection of water into a reservoir :-
• a- Increases reservoir energy
• b-Sweeps oil towards producing wells
• Most widely applied secondary recovery method
• Accounts for about 50% of U.S. oil production
Water Injection (Water flooding)
 How does a water flood work?

• Certain oil wells are converted to water injection wells

• Other oil wells remain as producers
• The injected water displaces, or “pushes” oil to the producing wells
• Water flooding performs two primary tasks:
• To maintain the reservoir pressure
• To drive the oil toward the wells
 Optimum Time to Water flooding

• Cole (1969) lists the following factors as being important when determining the
reservoir pressure (or time) to initiate a secondary recovery project:
• Reservoir oil viscosity
• Free gas saturation
• Cost of injection equipment
• Productivity of producing wells
• Effect of delaying investment on the time value of money
• Overall life of the reservoir
 Selection of Flooding Patterns

• One of the first steps in designing a water flooding project is flood pattern
selection. The objective is to select the proper pattern that will provide the
injection fluid with the maximum possible contact with the crude oil
system. This selection can be achieved by:
• Converting existing production wells into injectors or
• Drilling infill injection wells.
 There are four types of well arrangements
are used in fluid injection projects:
Regular Injection Patterns:
• Due to the fact that oil leases are divided into square miles and
quarter square miles, fields are developed in a very regular
pattern. A wide variety of injection-production well arrangements
have been used in injection projects.

Irregular Injection Patterns:

• production wells are converted into injectors in a no uniform
pattern. Faulting and localized variations in porosity or
permeability may also lead to irregular patterns.
Peripheral Injection Patterns
• In peripheral flooding, the injection wells are located at the
external boundary of the reservoir and the oil is displaced
toward the interior of the reservoir
 Water Movement

• Crouching
Encroaching water, moving will initially break -through to the producing well before the
entire drainage area attributable to the well has been swept by water.
• Fingering
Where Q exceeds a critical value, O/W interface becomes unstable, water will finger
(tongue) up the base of the formation to cause premature break through.
• Coning
Mechanism affecting producing well in bottom water drive reservoir. Affected by vertical
& horizontal permeability.
 Common problems in water floods

• 1-Poor Displacement Efficiency

Some high initial water saturation/low permeability reservoirs may have poor
displacement efficiency.
• This low efficiency may be indicated by:
• Low peak oil rate response
• Low total recovery
• Rapid decline in oil rates
• High and early water production
 2- Channeling/Gravity Segregation

• The indications of channeling, due to heterogeneity, are:

• Low peak oil rate response
• Low total recovery
• Fast gas collapse (< 0.05 HCPVI of water)
• Increasing WOR versus time derivative for individual wells

3-Poor volumetric sweep efficiency

(i.e., getting the injected water into the right aerial and/or zonal regions of the
reservoir).
•
4- Poor Continuity
In many tight, lenticular - type reservoirs and/or reservoirs from fluvial environments, continuity may be a
major problem.
• • Identification is important for spacing considerations.
• Poor reservoir continuity will be indicated by:
• The OOIP determined by material balance will be much less
• than the OOIP determined by volumetric
• Very poor peak oil rate response
• Little or no gas collapse; GOR remains high
• Very large differences in build up pressures between wells,
• especially between injectors and producers
• Little or no water production seen on either trend maps and WOR versus Np plots even after >25% HCPVI of
water
• Poor infectivity
• Low net to gross pay ratio; often it will be difficult to correlate thin, good permeability beds over cross
sections.