Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 76 (2011) 155171

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Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / p e t r o l

Revitalizing small offshore oil assets Field redevelopment feasibility study

P. Permata a,b, D.G. Hatzignatiou a,c,
a b c

U. of Stavanger (UiS), Norway Medco E&P Indonesia, Indonesia International Research Institute of Stavanger (IRIS), Norway

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
During the last two decades, several small size offshore elds in the North Sea have been developed and exploited by tie-in development strategies to existing infrastructure supplied by the nearby large hydrocarbon elds and/or pipeline transportation systems. The eld under consideration is such an example. However, achieved oil recoveries lower than expected (~ 18%) led to the abandonment of the asset and removal of the eld's supporting uid transportation lines and cables approximately two years from the onset of oil production. Since then, a change of eld ownership and several subsurface studies sparked a new interest of a possible eld redevelopment. This work investigates and evaluates the potential standalone eld redevelopment of a small North Sea oil eld through the deployment of a gas injection process that utilizes the produced gas as the key enhanced oil recovery (EOR) agent. A eld-sector, compositional simulation model is constructed to evaluate and compare the most promising gas-based EOR techniques such as continuous gas injection, water alternating gas and simultaneous water and gas injection processes against water injection. Several sensitivity studies are conducted to optimize the conditions/parameters of the selected EOR technique and practical issues that can inuence oil recovery factors are evaluated for a potential pilot or eld-wide scale implementation. The results indicate that the implementation of a Simultaneous Water and Gas (SWAG) EOR injection process that makes use of the eld produced gas and having undergone a thorough and eld-wide optimization of operational parameters (produced gas availability, uids injection rate, injection watergas ratio, production and injection well BHP, uids injection scheme, etc.) as well as a careful investigation of potential well interventions to increase oil production (selective re-perforation of existing wells, possible shutoff of excess water, etc.) could be a viable EOR technique for redeveloping this asset. 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 14 June 2010 Accepted 10 January 2011 Available online 21 January 2011 Keywords: Offshore eld redevelopment Reservoir management Enhanced oil recovery Miscible displacement Gas, water, WAG, SWAG injection Reservoir sweep efciency Reservoir characterization and heterogeneities

1. Introduction Several small North Sea oileld discoveries have been developed and produced primarily due to existing infrastructure in nearby larger size oil assets. The oil eld in focus, comprised of an extremely layered reservoir with a complex fault pattern, has been developed and produced in such a way. The eld was originally tied back to other surrounding elds for the processing of well uids, gas treatment, and water injection. The eld's production life started immediately with water injection, but earlier than expected water breakthrough and a relative low oil recovery factor (approximately 18%) led to the decision to abandon the eld approximately two years after the onset of oil production. A recent eld ownership change, along with newly conducted studies, such as the development of a new geological model that formed the basis for a new reservoir simulation model,

Corresponding author at: UiS & IRIS, Norway. Tel.: +47 97428002. E-mail address: dh@iris.no (D.G. Hatzignatiou). 0920-4105/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.petrol.2011.01.007

have generated a new interest to potentially redevelop this small oilbearing asset (Field X Redevelopment, 2008). These new studies show that a signicant upside potential exists for this eld in reservoir sections which have not been explored previously, and provide some options for its redevelopment to recover the oil left behind. However, following what at that time seemed to be eld abandonment operations, the eld's supporting infrastructures are no longer in place; in addition the absence of a gas exporting pipeline, coupled with anticipated relative low gas production volumes, prevent the eld to be redeveloped economically on a standalone basis. Therefore, the utilization of the eld's produced gas as an EOR agent needs to be the basis of any potential new eld redevelopment scenario. EOR screening criteria and existing results from the reservoir characterization studies show that produced gas re-injection can be a possible EOR technique to achieve this goal. The most promising overall EOR solution appears to be eld produced gas re-injection together with water to provide reservoir pressure support and control the injecteduid/formation-oil displacement mobility ratio, thus improving both the microscopic and macroscopic formation sweep efciencies and leading to increased oil recovery factors, especially when a new PVT

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study indicates that the produced eld gas can be miscible with the formation oil (PVT Study, 2007). The possible gas-based injection EOR techniques that can be implemented for the eld redevelopment include Continuous Gas Injection (CGI), Water Alternating Gas (WAG), and Simultaneous Water and Gas (SWAG). Each one of these methods has its advantages and disadvantages that will be explored as part of this work while investigating the possibilities and practicalities of implementing them in the asset under consideration (Lake, 1989; Christensen et al., 2001; Green and Willhite, 1998). Various schemes of such processes have already applied in several oil elds worldwide; see for example the Siri eld (Quale et al., 2000; Berg et al., 2002), the Joffre Viking CO2 miscible ood (Stephenson et al., 1993), and the Alaska's North Slope Kuparuk eld (Ma et al., 1994; Stoisits et al., 1995). In this paper a two-dimensional, cross-sectional, sector composition simulation model is used to simulate a representative eld compartment and investigate the potential redevelopment of a smallsize, offshore hydrocarbon-bearing eld in the North Sea on a standalone basis by re-injecting produced uids (water and gas) into the reservoir formation for EOR purposes. The areal sweep efciency effects are excluded from this sector model and therefore the oil recovery gures reported throughout this work can be considered as optimistic. The entire eld's total oil recovery can be inferred by properly accounting for the areal sweep efciency effects in the reported gures or by utilizing a history-matched, full-eld reservoir simulator to make more appropriate and realistic oil recovery predictions. 2. Field reservoir modeling The present reservoir has a complex fault system which signicantly impacts the areal sweep efciency of this eld. The formation understanding and the associated faulting system has been improved signicantly over the years, something that is clearly illustrated from the signicant difference of how the fault system in the eld is characterized in various geological studies. Nevertheless, fault seals in the simulation model are also considered as one of high uncertainty when it comes to predicting future reservoir performance. The formation has a large permeability contrast and is extremely layered with a highly channelized structure, which result in early water breakthrough times and poor vertical sweep efciency. According to the existing geological model the reservoir is known to have a poor vertical communication. The vertical permeability data used in this sector simulation model are generated from a full-eld history matching study which yielded three groups of kv/kh ratios. The rst 20 layers starting from the top of the formation, the last 29 layers from the formation bottom and the remaining 130 ones have kv/kh ratios of 0.01, 0.001, and 0.004, respectively. The DykstraParsons coefcient, assuming no communication among the formation layers and using a permeability cutoff value of 10 mD, is calculated to be VDP = 0.89 which indicates the very heterogeneous nature of the sector model. 2.1. Reservoir simulation model description Throughout this work, the commercial compositional simulator Eclipse (E300) is used to obtain the reported results. As discussed by Permata and Hatzignatiou (2011), two additional simulation models (E100 black-oil and E100 miscible black-oil models) were also considered and evaluated, but the compositional formulation is the most proper and effective one to model miscible gas injection processes, since when properly formulated it can effectively account for uid compositional gradients, reservoir uids compositional behavior versus pressure (time) and mass transfer that takes place between the hydrocarbon gas and liquid phases during miscible

displacements, especially where miscibility is achieved through multiple contacts between the injected solvent and formation oil. A 2D (xz) ne grid, sector cross-sectional compositional model with a pair of injection and production wells based on an existing black-oil full-eld simulation model is used to investigate various gaswater injection scenarios as a means of increasing oil recovery from a North Sea oil eld. This sector model contains 28 1 179 cells with the top of the production well being at 3022 m subsea and the injection well at 3171 m subsea. The sector model dip angle is 6.2 and its approximate dimensions are 1400 m length, 50 m width, 70 m thickness and its hydrocarbon pore volume (HCPV) around 264,000 Rm3. Finally, the sector model contains a pair of injection and production wells with the injection well located at the ank and the production well at the crest of the formation sector. The reservoir is initially undersaturated and the initial pressure and temperature are reported equal to 314 bar and 103 C, respectively. The eld's formation reference pressure is reported as 309 bar at datum depth 2969 m subsea and the rock compressibility is equal to 1.4210 4 bar 1 at the reference pressure of 345 bar (Field X Redevelopment, 2008). A representative uid sample collected at the datum depth revealed an oil phase with bubble point pressure of 281.5 bar, GOR of 327 Sm3/Sm3, oil formation volume factor of 2.08 Rm3/Sm3 and oil viscosity of 0.49 cp; the oil density at standard conditions was 845 kg/m3. The uid contacts in this eld are based on well observations and pressure gradient analyses with the sector model containing no gas-cap gas and with a wateroil contact at 3176 m subsea. The initial uid saturation distribution of the eld is taken from geological modeling and based on the petrophysical analyses that implicitly take into account the formation lithology and capillary pressure. Relative permeability and capillary pressure curves are assigned corresponding to the three identied formation facies namely, channel, subtidal and other facies. Permata (2008) and Permata and Hatzignatiou (2011) provide more details of the basic rock and uids properties as well as the heterogeneous nature of the formation. The uid properties used in this work are generated from a commercial PVT simulator and then used as input data in reservoir sector simulation (PVT Study, 2007). The experimental data obtained from a representative bottomhole sample has been used to characterize the PVT properties of the oil column. The reservoir uid has a critical reservoir pressure of 323 bar and a critical temperature of 253 C; its detailed composition and phase envelope are described by Permata and Hatzignatiou (2011). A seven component lumping scheme is chosen to describe the reservoir uid composition in the developed compositional simulation sector model using four grouped components (N2 + C1, CO2 + C2, C3 C4, and C5 C6) and three heavy C7+ components (C7 C14, C14 C27, and C28 C80). The hydrocarbon components C2 and C3 are grouped in different fractions due to the high propane content of the reservoir uid, and in order to match the results of the separator tests. The PengRobinson EOS with the Peneloux volume correction together and the LohrenzBrayClark viscosity correlation are used to match the simulated against the experimental data, tune the EOS and model the compositional behavior of the reservoir uid in the compositional sector model (PVT Study, 2007). Finally, the reservoir uid compositional and saturation pressure variations as a function of formation depth are derived based on the PVT simulation modeling (PVT Study, 2007). The impact of the produced gas re-injection on oil recovery is dependent on several factors such as injected gas composition and properties, resulting phase behavior changes due to the compositional changes of the formation uids over time, etc. Based on a PVT analysis, the injected (separator) gas has a critical point at 135 bar and 28 C, and it also contains a high amount of intermediate components which should provide a relative low minimum miscibility pressure (MMP). Since no slim tube experiments are available, and a phase behavior PVT simulator predicted a MMP lower than the formation oil saturation pressure, the MMP value is considered to be equal to the

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initial bubble-point pressure at the corresponding depth (Yellig and Metcalfe, 1980). Finally, despite the fact that asphaltene studies on the collected uid samples were not conducted, PVT simulation results using the de Boers solubility plot, indicate that the risk of asphaltene precipitation during reservoir depletion is small (PVT Study, 2007). Due to the lack of more relevant data, it is assumed that no asphaltene deposition occurs in the formation for all pressures encountered during the EOR processes.

Table 1 Ultimate oil recovery comparison for various EOR processes base-case (total uid injection rate 200 Rm3/day, maximum injection pressure 450 bar, and production well BHP constraint 200 bar). EOR process CWI SWAG Gaswater ratio 1G7W 1G3W 1G2W 1G1W 2G1W 3G1W 7G1W Ultimate oil recovery 0.3212 0.3675 0.3784 0.3828 0.3901 0.3960 0.3962 0.3910 0.3771

3. EOR processes simulation and optimization The simulation runs presented in this work follow the eld's production history that includes two years of continuous water injection at a constant water injection rate of 200 Rm3/day resulting in a cumulative injected water volume of approximately 0.25 PV. Following these two years of water injection, all eld wells are shut-in and remain so to this date. The eld redevelopment plans that are being considered, call for the implementation of a gas-based EOR scheme to recover the remaining oil within ten years starting January 1, 2010. Therefore, all simulation results have the same eld history until January 1, 2010, followed by ten (10) years (January 1, 2010 to January 1, 2020) of EOR uids injection with a base-case of constant downhole total uid injection rate of 200 Rm3/day (this was the average rate used also during the asset's waterooding period and has proven to maintain the eld's pressure at about the initial conditions voidage replacement; a sensitivity study will be also carried out to identify the appropriate uids injection rate). Using the same time-base for comparison it means that the pore volumes of the uid injected will be different for the various injection rates considered in this study. However, in an offshore environment the eld operational costs are a major factor in deciding a eld's abandonment time. Based on this eld's waterooding operational experience and results obtained from numerous simulation runs (not shown in this work), it was decided to use the time of 2020 as the eld abandonment time. Therefore, all results shown in this work are reported based on this requirement. Finally, for all simulation runs, the injection well BHP constraint is set equal to 450 bar due to the formation fracturing and the maximum allowable working pressure of the existing injection line. Finally, the production well BHP constraint of 200 bar is specied for the base case to prevent the well from producing at BHP lower than the bubble-point pressure. The developed compositional simulation model will be used to make predictions and effectively design the appropriate operational schedule for the implementation of the selected EOR process in this sector. In the remaining section the focus will be on the: (a) estimation of the appropriate production well BHP, (b) design of the most effective strategy for oil displacement, (c) selection of the EOR uids injection scheme (injection location in the vertical column, order of uids injection, etc.), (d) optimization of the injected gas water ratio for the SWAG process, and (e) estimation of uids injection rate to further improve oil recovery from the sector model.
CGI

3.2. Production well BHP constraint sensitivity SWAG EOR process The step-wise plan discussed above to optimize the SWAG EOR process, and achieve the highest oil recovery, starts with the production well bottomhole pressure (BHP) sensitivity. Several scenarios are considered and simulations are conducted for the SWAG 1G1W case and for various production well BHP constraints to examine their impact on oil recovery. The production well BHP constraints of 200, 250, 281, 300, and 350 bar are used in this sensitivity and the oil recovery results obtained are illustrated in Fig. 1. Note that this gure includes the entire simulated eld history for reference and to illustrate the past eld performance. In the remaining paper only post-January 1, 2010 results are shown. The results of Fig. 1 show that the higher the production well BHP constraint is the higher oil recovery is achieved (this is explained in the next paragraph). For the specied production well BHP of 350 bar, the production well initially does not ow; with the uids injection continuing the system becomes over-pressurized and the injection well BHP exceeds the specied maximum allowable pressure of 450 bar. The injection well rate is then reduced automatically by the simulator while the production well remains closed. Continuous such reductions yield a practically zero injection rate causing the simulator to shut-in the injector and terminate the simulation run since neither well is open. This is the reason for not displaying the results for the BHP = 350 bar case in Fig. 1. Fig. 2 shows a comparison of average eld pressure, production well BHP and production reservoir rate for production well BHP constraints of 200 and 300 bar. For the BHP = 200 bar case, the production well BHP decreases below the initial saturation pressure (~273 bar) for this reservoir depth, but never declines below 200 bar, whereas for the BHP = 300 bar case, the production well BHP is adjusted by the simulator to remain always above 300 bar. Therefore, the total uid production rate remains constant and equal to 200 Rm3/day for the BHP = 200 bar, whereas, for the BHP = 300 bar constraint the total uid production rate is adjusted by the simulator and during some periods of the well's life is not drastically less than 200 Rm3/day, especially until May 2011. Fig. 2 also shows that the average eld pressure remains over 300 bar for the BHP = 300 bar case compared to the BHP = 200 bar one, which during early 2017 falls below the MMP of 273 bar. This causes loss of miscibility between the injected gas and the formation crude oil in some parts of the formation and the oil recovery for the BHP = 200 bar case to be lower than the BHP = 300 bar one. Fig. 3 displays the surface oil, water and gas ow rates as a function of time for these two cases. As it can be seen, the oil production rate for the BHP = 300 bar case is almost always larger than the BHP = 200 bar case, thus leading to higher oil recoveries throughout the ten-year implementation of the SWAG EOR process with a gas water ratio 1G1W. The conclusions of the production well BHP constraint sensitivity are that (a) generally, a higher production well BHP constraint results

3.1. Preliminary SWAG optimization For the base case discussed above, several SWAG injection scenarios with various gaswater ratios are investigated and compared against the CGI and CWI cases as well as used to determine the optimum ratio that yields the maximum oil recovery. The results in Table 1 show that both CGI and SWAG EOR processes, regardless of the utilized gaswater ratio, outperform the CWI process. More specically, for the SWAG process as the gaswater ratio increases (from 1:7 to 7:1) the oil recovery increases as well, it reaches a maximum value at an approximate gaswater ratio of 3:1 and then decreases gradually. The ultimate oil recovery for the CGI is comparable to that of the 1G4W SWAG EOR process.

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Fig. 1. Production well BHP constraint sensitivity on SWAG 1G1W injection oil recovery.

to higher eld pressures that prevent the reservoir pressure to drop below saturation pressure and also promote better miscibility conditions, thus leading to a higher oil recovery factor, and (b) the production well BHP constraint of 300 bar gives the best oil recovery of 44.11% for the SWAG injection scenario with gaswater ratio 1:1 (SWAG 1G1W injection) considered here. 3.3. Gas-based EOR processes comparison The three potential EOR processes considered in this work namely, CGI, WAG and SWAG, are compared here against the water injection to

determine the incremental oil recovery that could be obtained from a potential implementation of these EOR processes against the basic waterooding scenario. All simulation runs pertain to a 200 Rm3/day constant downhole total uid injection rate with a 300 bar production well BHP constraint as the optimum production well BHP determined in the previous subsection. The WAG process refers to the gaswater cycle length of 1:1 and the SWAG process to the gaswater ratio also of 1:1. The oil recovery results from these runs, and after approximately 1.25 PV of total uids injected, are shown in Fig. 4. The achieved incremental oil recovery factors for the three gas-based EOR processes with the CWI considered as the base-line are: SWAG +12.63%, WAG +8.93% and

Fig. 2. Production well BHP constraint sensitivity impact on SWAG 1G1W production well BHP and reservoir volume production rate.

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Fig. 3. Oil displacement strategy comparison. Production well BHP constraint sensitivity impact on SWAG 1G1W uids production rate.

CGI +8.23%, i.e., all these three EOR processes outperform the standard waterooding one. Fig. 5 shows the visualization of the uids saturation distribution at approximately 1.25 PV of injected uids for the four oil displacement methods considered above. This gure illustrates that (a) the reservoir uids distribution for these four processes is different at the end of the simulated ow period, and (b) the most effective formation vertical sweep is achieved for the SWAG process. The CGI case yields a higher oil recovery than the CWI one, which could be attributed to the reduction of the residual oil saturation left in the formation following the miscible process under consideration. Higher oil recovery factors

are obtained for both the WAG and SWAG injection cases compared to the CWI and CGI scenarios due to the combined improvements in the microscopic displacement efciency, associated with miscible gas injection, and the macroscopic sweep efciency attributed to the injected water. Comparing the WAG and SWAG cases, the latter results to lower residual oil saturations in the formation due to less oil trapping from the water-blocking phenomenon (which could be an issue in the WAG process) since the gas and water are injected simultaneously (note that the presence of high amounts (saturation) of water in the porous space tends to restrict access of the injected miscible hydrocarbon-based solvent to the residual or unswept oil

Fig. 4. Sector oil recoveries versus time for the CWI, CGI, WAG and SWAG EOR displacement methods.

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Fig. 5. Visualization of uids saturation distribution at 1.25 PV of injected uids for the four examined EOR methods, i.e., CWI, CGI, WAG and SWAG (green color oil; red color gas; and blue color water).

phase due to the solvent's low solubility (and very low diffusion rate) into the aqueous phase, thus yielding a lower microscopic sweep efciency). This leads to a more effective mobilization of the oil left behind at the end of the two-year waterooding period that preceded the SWAG EOR processes and thus a higher oil recovery than the one achieved from the WAG EOR process. It should be noted also that in general, the presence of high water saturation in the most permeable layers tends to divert the injected solvent (gas) into the lower permeability zones, thus increasing the eld's macroscopic sweep efciency. 3.4. Optimization of SWAG EOR uids injection scheme This section investigates the inuence of the uids injection scheme on oil recovery and draws relevant conclusions for optimizing the relevant SWAG EOR process. For historical reasons, and for simplifying the vertical formation sections the uids are injected into, the formation vertical column has been subdivided into two main zones each one of them containing a channel facies of high permeability in order for both zones to have a similar behavior when it comes to vertical sweep efciency. Thus, the sector model is divided into two zones with the rst 122 upper simulation layers forming the upper zone and the remaining 57 layers constituting the lower one. The lower zone channel facies has the highest permeability and the upper zone contains signicantly larger oil reserves compared to the lower zone. The simulation data is the same one as previously, namely, 200 Rm3/day constant downhole total uid injection rate, maximum

injection well BHP of 450 bar, and production well BHP constraint of 300 bar. Similarly, the injection and production well perforations are the same as in all previous runs. Three scenarios are considered for this sensitivity: Case 1 water and gas injected through all perforations, Case 2 gas injected in the upper zone and water into the lower zone and Case 3 water injected in the upper zone and gas into the lower zone. Fig. 6 shows the oil recovery for these three cases with Case 1 yielding the highest oil recovery (44.11%) followed by Case 2 (40.93%) and nally by Case 3 (37.32%). In Case 2, the water is injected in the lower zone which contains the channel facies with the highest permeability and because water moves slower than gas, that is injected into the same zone for Case 3, the oil recoveries of Case 2 increase slower compared to Case 3. However, for Case 2 gas injection in the upper zone, that contains higher oil reserves comparing to the lower zone, assists in the recovery of signicant oil volumes primarily due to microscopic displacement associated with the achieved miscibility that yields lower residual oil saturations. The oil recovery for Case 3 increases faster than the other two cases (Cases 1 and 2) in the rst year of oil production due to the rapid movement of the gas that is injected into the lower zone, which contains the most permeable layers at its channel facies, thus yielding higher oil recoveries. After the gas breakthrough, gas re-circulates through this zone and this phenomenon combined with low water injectivity in the upper zone results to a slow-down of the oil recovery compared to the other two cases (see Fig. 6). Case 3 contributes very little to the microscopic displacement efciency since the gas breakthrough occurs

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Fig. 6. Compositional sector model results: oil recovery versus time for the three EOR uid injection schemes.

very fast in the lower zone due to the presence of the very permeable zone of the channel facies. Case 1 takes advantage of the water and gas injected in both high and low permeability zones and results to the highest oil recovery due to the combined effects of a better sweep efciency from the injected water and a reduced residual oil saturation associated with the injected gas that miscibly displaces oil from the upper zone. This leads to a better utilization of microscopic and macroscopic displacement efciencies in the upper zone which contains most of the oil reserves in this sector model. Visualizations of uids saturation distributions after 0.25 PV (January 1, 2012) and 1.25 PV (January 1, 2020) of injected EOR uids for these three cases are illustrated, respectively, in the upper and lower frames in Fig. 7. This gure shows that (a) for Case 1 the injected gas and water successfully displace oil in the upper zone, and (b) low kv/kh ratio in both zones along with high kh in the channel layer of the lower zone do not promote uid gravity segregation which in combination with across-bedding ow can enhance oil recovery. Based on the results presented for the SWAG uid injection schemes: (a) since the upper zone contains signicantly higher oil reserves than the lower zone, higher oil recoveries require improvements of the effectiveness that the upper zone is being swept by the injected EOR uids; (b) gas injection in the upper zone aimed to reduce the residual oil saturation has a signicant impact on oil recovery; (c) gas injection in the lower zone causes gas channeling and viscous ngering through the high permeable channel facies causing early gas break-through and gas re-circulation; and (d) simultaneous water and gas injection through all perforations in the formation column results to the highest oil recovery factor of 44.11%. 3.5. Injected gaswater ratio optimization SWAG EOR process The amount of injected water and gas in a SWAG process is a design parameter that can be tuned to obtain the best possible displacement efciency. High amounts of injected water can result in poor microscopic displacement, whereas high volumes of injected gas may yield poor vertical efciency, and possibly low areal sweep efciency. Continuing the design of the optimum injection scheme from the previous section where it was determined that gas and water should be injected simultaneously through all perforations, Case 1, the composi-

tional sector model is used to run various SWAG gaswater ratios scenarios. The other two EOR uids injection schemes (namely, Case 2 gas injected in the upper zone and Case 3 water injected in the upper zone) are also simulated for comparison. The simulation data le is the same as in the previous section, namely 200 Rm3/day constant total uid injection rate, maximum injection well BHP of 450 bar, and production well BHP constraint of 300 bar. All oil recovery results for the three different uid injection schemes, and for the various gaswater ratios are illustrated in Fig. 8. For the sake of completeness both CWI (blue column) and CGI (magenta column) oil recoveries are also presented. Note that in these two processes, the relevant EOR uid, water or gas for CWI or CGI, respectively, is injected through all the injection well perforations. This gure shows that for all three simulation schemes considered the following are valid: (a) the SWAG EOR process for all three injection schemes outperforms the CWI process regardless the injected gaswater ratio; (b) the SWAG Case 3 (water upper and gas lower injection scheme) has the lower oil recovery factors for all gaswater ratios compared to both Cases 1 and 2 (as well as the CGI process) since the majority of oil reserves exist in the upper zone and the water effectiveness in displacing these reserves is not very good; (c) Case 1 yields the highest oil recovery and Case 3 the lowest one for all examine gaswater ratios, and (d) for all three SWAG cases, as the gaswater ratio increases (from 1:7 to 7:1) the oil recovery increases, reaches a maximum value at approximate gas water ratios of 3:1, 2:1 and 1:1 for Cases 1, 2 and 3, respectively, and nally decreases for larger than the corresponding optimum gas water ratios. More specically, the optimum gaswater ratio and the corresponding oil recovery factor for the three uids injection schemes are: (a) Case 1 SWAG 3G1W Oil RF = 45.75%, (b) Case 2 SWAG 2G1W Oil RF = 43.83%, and (c) Case 3 SWAG 1G1W Oil RF = 37.32%. For a better understanding of the impact of gaswater ratio on oil recovery, three SWAG injection scenarios with gaswater ratio of 1:7 (1G7W), 3:1 (3G1W) and 7:1 (7G1W) are compared in Fig. 9. The left two frames in this gure show that the gas production rate and GOR for the SWAG 7G1W injection case are much higher compared to the two other cases (1G7W and 3G1W). This is to be expected since when large volumes of gas are injected (7G1W), the high gas velocities will

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Fig. 7. Visualization of uids saturation distribution at 0.25 PV (upper frames) and 1.25 PV (lower frames) for the three EOR SWAG uids injection schemes (green color oil; red color gas; and blue color water).

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Fig. 8. Compositional SWAG, CGI and CWI oil recoveries for the three uids injection scenarios.

result to higher gas viscous ngering tendencies due to the unfavorable mobility ratio at the gasoil interface, and thus to reduced formation sweep efciency. On the other hand the watercut for case 1G7W is higher than that for 3G1W which has higher water-cut than case 7G1W (see third frame in Fig. 9). Finally, the fourth frame in Fig. 9 shows that the oil production rate for case 3G1W

is higher, for the majority of the ten-year duration of the SWAG process. When large amounts of water are injected (as in the SWAG 1G7W case), high water saturations will exist in the invaded formation pore volume that potentially can lead to oil trapping and water blockage phenomena causing lower oil recoveries. This is illustrated in Fig. 10

Fig. 9. Comparison of water cut, gas production rate, oil production rate and GOR for SWAG injection with gaswater ratio of 1G7W, 3G1W and 7G1W.

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Fig. 10. Visualization of uid saturation distribution at PV = 1.5 for the SWAG EOR process with injected gaswater ratios of 1G7W, 3G1W and 7G1W (green color oil; red color gas; and blue color water).

P. Permata, D.G. Hatzignatiou / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 76 (2011) 155171 Table 2 Injected gas compositional changes and gas availability on ultimate oil recovery qt = 200 Rm3/day. Ultimate oil RF SWAG EOR process gaswater ratio 1:7 FIXED case GAS case WV case WV case with WAVAILIM keyword 0.3852 0.3764 0.3737 0.3375 1:3 0.4234 0.4077 0.4032 0.3282 1:2 0.4290 0.4081 0.4023 0.3200 1:1 0.4411 0.4087 0.4021 0.2985 2:1 0.4571 0.4086 0.4020 0.2799 3:1 0.4575 0.4078 0.3986 0.2692 7:1 0.4315 0.3799 0.3736 0.2494

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which shows that the 1G7W SWAG case has a higher residual oil saturation compared to the two other cases. The case SWAG 3G1W appears to yield the optimum uids velocity that can result to the best microscopic and macroscopic oil displacements. These ndings are in accordance with the results presented earlier in Table 1. 3.6. Compositional variation of injected SWAG EOR gas During the planned ten years of the gas-based SWAG EOR process, the produced gas and reservoir oil compositions will vary and these changes will affect the corresponding PVT phase envelopes, as well as the degree, type and effectiveness of the developed uids miscibility in the formation. Even though the reservoir oil composition is calculated as a function of time by the compositional simulator, all the results shown so far consider that the composition of the injected gas remains constant (and is the same as the one measured from the PVT analysis on the collected uid sample) throughout the duration of the SWAG EOR process. In this subsection, a sensitivity study is conducted to investigate the impact of the injected gas compositional variation on the achieved oil recovery from this oil-bearing asset. The type and composition of the injected gas can be modeled in Eclipse 300 using one of the following three options: (a) STREAM, referred to as FIXED gas injection case, in which one needs to specify the nature and molar composition of the injected gas that remains

xed during the entire simulation run, (b) GAS, referred to as GAS gas injection case, in which the nature and molar composition of the injection gas is set to that of the eld separator gas, and (c) WV referred to as WV gas injection case in which the nature and the molar composition of the injection gas is taken from the vapor production of a nominated well (Eclipse Reference Manual, 2007). The FIXED gas composition in this work refers to a xed composition of the separator gas from a representative uid sample collected at a higher formation depth compared to the ones encountered in this reservoir sector model. The FIXED and GAS initial composition mole percentages are different due to the fact that the GAS case gas represents a separator gas from the reservoir uid produced from deeper reservoir sections compared to the FIXED gas. More specically, the GAS gas is richer in CO2 +C2, C3 +C4, and C15 C27 components and contains lower amounts of N2 +C1, C5 +C6, and C7 C14 components compared to the FIXED gas. In addition, as one would expect, the GAS gas composition varies as a function of time with the N2 +C1, C5 +C6, C7 C14 component mole fractions decreasing and the CO2 +C2 and C3 +C4 ones increasing as production time increases (the C15 C27 component is insignicant and remains constant equal to 0.0001 mol%). This suggests that the produced gas gets richer in intermediate components through vaporization from the reservoir liquid phase, whereas it loses heavier components through condensation into the reservoir liquid phase during the creation of miscibility conditions for the gas-based SWAG EOR process. The SWAG EOR oil recovery factors obtained for these three types of injected gas, namely FIXED, GAS and VW cases, are summarized as a function of the SWAG gaswater ratio in the rst three lines in Table 2 (the last row is discussed later). This table shows that regardless the employed gaswater ratio, the oil recovery factor for the FIXED gas case is always higher than the GAS and VW ones. The oil recovery factor for the VW gas case is consistently the lowest compared to the other two types of injected gas, again, regardless of the injected gaswater ratio. For low gaswater ratios (less than 1G1W), the recovery factors for all three cases are similar, but as the amount of the injected gas is increased, the overestimation of the oil recovery factor for the FIXED gas case cannot be ignored.

Fig. 11. VW case variation of injected gas rate versus time for various SWAG gaswater ratios (qt = 200 Rm3/day).

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Fig. 12. Impact of uid injection rate for SWAG injection with gaswater ratio of 3:1.

3.7. Produced-to-injected gas balance (availability of required for injection gas volume) The tacit assumption in all cases presented and discussed so far is that all the gas volume required for injection to support the needs of any EOR process is available at all times. Since the ability to import gas does not exist in this eld, the required for injection gas must come from the produced gas. It is, therefore, very important to examine this major requirement and investigate the impact of gas decit or excess on the projected reservoir sector oil recovery.

The WAVAILIM keyword is used to investigate the availability of the required for the injection gas volumes for the SWAG EOR process for a constant total uid displacement rate of qt = 200 Rm3/day, production well BHP constraint of 300 bar, and injection well BHP constraint of 450 bar. The simulator at each time step examines the required for the injection gas volume with respect to the amount of gas available from the production stream from the previous time step or iteration level. If the required for the injection gas amount is larger than that of the produced gas one, the simulator adjusts the injected gas volumes based on the available amount of produced gas. This

Fig. 13. Production well BHP constraint sensitivity SWAG 3G1W injection BHP, water and gas injection rates.

P. Permata, D.G. Hatzignatiou / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 76 (2011) 155171 Table 3 Total, water, and gas injection volumes for several total uids injection rates at end of simulation run sensitivity of the SWAG 3G1W EOR process. qt Injection Total injected Total volume of injected gas/water (Rm3/day) BHP uids ratio () (bar) (Rm3) 100 200 300 400 600 700 800 1000 b 450 b 450 N 450 N 450 N 450 N 450 N 450 N 450 3 3 2.997 2.894 2.515 2.146 1.693 0.972 365,200 730,400 1,094,752 1,421,940 1,925,430 2,008,940 1,966,854 1,794,050 Final volume of injected water (Rm3) 91,300 182,600 273,900 365,200 547,800 639,100 730,400 909,827 Final volume of injected gas (Rm3) 273,900 547,800 820,852 1,056,740 1,377,630 1,369,840 1,236,454 884,223

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option is available only for the WV case, and the results from the simulation runs, shown in Fig. 11, illustrate the major impact the injected-to-produced gas balance maintenance requirement has on the projected reservoir sector gas injection rates and the corresponding oil recoveries versus time, which are displayed in the last row in Table 2 at the end of the ten-year period from the implementation of the SWAG EOR processes. Fig. 11 clearly shows the shortage of gas required for the injection and the need for the simulator to signicantly reduce the injected gas volumes, for all gaswater ratios, especially during the rst two to three years after the SWAG process begins. Following this time period, the produced-to-injected gas ratio more or less stabilizes (except the 7G1W case which requires substantially higher volume of gas for injection), but at gas rates which are signicantly lower than the required ones dictated by the specied gaswater ratio for a given SWAG process. Considering, for example, the case of 3G1W in which the water injection rate is xed at 50 Rm3/day and the ideal gas injection rate should be 150 Rm3/day (for a total uid injection rate of 200 Rm3/day). According to Fig. 11, the injected gas is drastically reduced down to 2.5 Rm3/day within 4.5 years from the onset of the EOR process, for a total uid injection rate of 52.5 Rm3/day instead of the required 200 Rm3/day; this injected total uid volume subsequently remains at this level for the rest of the oil production period. The least affected case is that of 1G7W that requires the lowest volume of the injected gas (yielding also the lowest oil recoveries

compared to all other cases see Table 2), in which the injected gas is reduced from the optimum required gas rate of 25 Rm3/day down to approximately 7 Rm3/day (total uid injection rate of 182 Rm3/day versus the required 200 Rm3/day). The last two rows in Table 2 show the major impact that the gas shortage has on the ultimate oil recovery for the VW case. Among all the cases presented in this table, the lowest impact on oil recovery is observed, as expected and discussed above, for the lowest gaswater ratio of 1G7W and the highest for the largest gaswater ratio of 7G1W. It needs to be pointed out at this stage, that the observed signicant reductions of oil recovery will not be as dramatic as the ones presented here due to the following facts: (a) there is no need to reduce the total uid injection rate, as the simulator automatically does, for the high gas water ratios which means that the process, if nothing else, should become more like a low gaswater ratio SWAG or in the worst case a CWI process which has an oil recovery factor of 0.3158 versus the 0.2494 listed in Table 2 for the 7G1W, and (b) this is a sector model and as such it only considers the gas balance from this reservoir section, and also does not account for the areal sweep efciency. In reality, this gas balance requirement should be applied in the entire eld, thus giving opportunities to appropriately allocate the produced gas more effectively among the various injection wells in the eld. Therefore, for consistency with all results presented so far and the inability to implement a eld-wide gas balance among all the injection and production wells in the sector model used in this work, all remaining simulation runs assume that sufcient gas volumes are always available. 3.8. Fluid injection rate sensitivity on optimized SWAG 3G1W process Various downhole total uid injection rates on the optimized SWAG 3G1W injection are used in this subsection in order to determine the optimum rate for this process and all oil recovery results are depicted in Fig. 12. These results indicate that the total uid injection rate of 700 Rm3/day is the optimum one. For total uid injection rate less than 300 Rm3/day the injection well BHP is always below the maximum specied of 450 bar. From Fig. 13, for higher total uid injection rates (such as 400, 600 and 1000 Rm3/day) the injection well BHP exceeds the specied injection well BHP of 450 bar causing the gas injection rates to be reduced while maintaining a constant water injection rate (100, 150 and 250 Rm3/day). Table 3

Fig. 14. Oil recovery versus time for several SWAG EOR processes. Optimization of the qt = 700 Rm3/day SWAG injection case.

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summarizes the nal volume of uids (water, gas and total) injected for all uids injection rates considered in this sensitivity analysis. Note that as a result of the uids injection rate adjustment made by the simulator, when the injection well BHP constraint is violated, the SWAG 3G1W objective may not be achieved, especially for the higher injection rates. For example, for the 600 Rm3/day total uid injection rate, the nal (overall) SWAG process is equivalent to 2.5G1W, whereas for the highest tested rate of 1000 Rm3/day the equivalent SWAG process becomes 1G1W. Finally, Table 3 indicates that the maximum amount of the injected uids (water plus gas) occurs for the injection rate case of 700 Rm3/day which also yields the highest oil recovery. Therefore, this was the rate chosen for further optimization which is addressed in the next section. High total uid injection rates will make viscous forces more important, but will also cause the injection well BHP constraint to be activated and the injected gas injection rate to be reduced as long as the injection well BHP constraint is violated, thus yielding gaswater injection ratios other than the optimum one of 3G1W. This yields incompatible injection scenarios; for example for the two cases of qt = 400 Rm3/day and qt = 600 Rm3/day, the processes become the specied SWAG 3G1W one after around 1.5 years and over 4 years, respectively, from the start of the EOR process in January 1, 2010 (see Fig. 13). Finally, for the high gas injection rates (see for example the 1000 Rm3/day case) Fig. 13 shows that the simulator encounters some instability/convergence numerical problems. 3.9. Gaswater ratio optimization on 700 Rm3/day injection rate SWAG EOR process Continuing with the SWAG design related to the optimum total uid injection rate of 700 Rm3/day, the compositional sector model is run to determine the optimum gaswater ratio associated with this total uid injection rate. The maximum allowable injection well BHP remains at 450 bar and the production well BHP constraint is as before equal to 300 bar. The simulation results, shown in Fig. 14, indicate that the oil recovery factor for the gaswater ratios 1G7W, 1G3W and 1G2W is relatively the same (just over 49%), but as the amount of the injected gas is further increased (gaswater ratios 1G1W, 2G1W,

3G1W, 7G1W and 11G1W) the oil recovery increases as well. The CGI case yields oil recovery factor (75.64%) somewhere in between the gaswater ratios of 3:1 (70.44%) and 7:1 (76.69%). The maximum oil recovery for all cases considered is for the 11G1W case (78.25%). The incremental oil recovery factor between cases 7G1W and 3G1W is 6.25%, whereas the one between cases 11G1W and 7G1W is only 1.56%. However, the 11G1W case requires substantially larger volumes of the injected gas compared to the 7G1W SWAG case. Based on all simulation results, the case 7G1W has been selected as the optimum one, despite that fact that does not yield the highest oil recovery for the following reasons: (a) the high incremental oil recovery factor of this case compared to the 3G1W one, (b) the marginally higher oil recovery factor (+ 1.56%) of the 11G1W compared to the 7G1W SWAG, (c) the smaller gas decit of the 7G1W compared to the 11G1W SWAG and (d) the required larger volumes of injected gas could be potentially supplied from other parts of the eld in which the gas injected is lower than the produced one. It should be pointed out once again that these high oil recovery factors are due to the assumptions of (a) sufcient amounts of injection gas are always available, (b) constant gas composition throughout the process, and (c) ideal areal sweep efciency in the sector model. Results from several simulation runs for the 3G1W, 7G1W and 11G1W SWAG cases and for total uid injection rates varying from 100 to 1000 Rm3/day clearly demonstrate that the amount of the injected gas is always larger than the amount of the produced gas. The recorded gas decit (volume of gas injected daily minus volume of gas produced daily) is (a) as high as 150 kSm3/day (at very early times when the amount of the produced gas from the reservoir is still very low) and as low as 900 Sm3/day (at late times), (b) varies signicantly over the ten-year EOR period, and (c) increases as the total uid injection rate becomes larger. The SWAG cases with a gaswater ratio of less than one (i.e., 1G7W, 1G3W and 1G2W) have approximately the same oil recovery (just over 49%) because for all these cases the well injection pressures very rapidly reach the maximum allowable one of 450 bar. The injected water and gas rates for all these cases have a similar behavior; more specically, once the injection well BHP reaches the maximum specied pressure of 450 bar, the injected gas reservoir rate is

Fig. 15. Gaswater ratio optimization for qt = 700 Rm3/day case SWAG 3G1W and 7G1W injection BHP, water and gas injection rates.

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continuously adjusted by the simulator for the entire simulated EOR period and the total reservoir uid injection rates never reach the specied level of 700 Rm3/day; the maximum value they attain is approximately equal to 520 Rm3/day. For the SWAG cases with gaswater ratio larger than one (i.e., 2G1W, 3G1W, 7G1W and 11G1W), the impact of water pressurization is less pronounced than that for the cases with the gaswater ratio of less than one (i.e., 1G7W, 1G3W and 1G2W). This is shown in Fig. 15 in which the injection well BHP, water, gas and total uid injection rates are depicted as a function of time for the 3G1W and 7G1W cases. Comparing the injected uid volumes for these two cases, for over six years of the ten-year production cycle the injected total uid rate for the high gaswater ratio case (7G1W) is equal to 700 Rm3/day in contradiction with the low gaswater ratio case (3G1W) in which the injected total uid rate is equal to the specied value only for the last two years. This implies that not only lower volumes of total uid are injected in the low gaswater SWAG cases (i.e., 1G7W, 1G3W and 1G2W), but also signicantly lower volumes of gas compared to the high gas cases (i.e., 2G1W, 3G1W, 7G1W and 11G1W). This explains the relatively high recovery factors for the high gas cases and the relative lack of sensitivity of the low gas cases to the gaswater ratio. Finally, one should note that the optimum gaswater ratio for 700 Rm3 /day total uid injection rate is 7G1W, whereas for 200 Rm3/day total uid injection rate the optimum ratio is 3G1W for both SWAG and WAG processes. 3.10. WAG EOR process Several simulations runs are also conducted to evaluate the efciency and effectiveness of a WAG process. In addition to the eld operational logistics namely, inability to store or export the produced gas during the water injection cycle in a WAG process and that the WAG process may not be as effective as the SWAG one, from a theoretical point of view a WAG process implementation with a reduced injection cycle length has the potential of increasing the oil recovery efciency in this eld. In general, the oil recovery is larger for higher volumes of the injected gas, for a given WAG cycle length, and/ or shorter WAG cycle lengths. In addition, gas injection at the rst

WAG cycle results in higher oil recoveries compared to injecting water rst. This is due to (a) the opportunity given to the gas to come in contact and mobilize the residual oil, which can then be displaced more effectively by the injected water, and (b) the existence of lower water saturation which suppresses the water blocking phenomenon. Although this process is not considered further in this work, Permata (2008) presents and discusses oil recovery and optimization results from several WAG EOR process simulations runs. 4. Practical considerations This section builds on the optimization results presented earlier and attempts to investigate whether simple and practical well interventions (such as the addition of new perforations and/or improvement of the vertical sweep efciency by diverting injected uids in unswept vertical reservoir sector sections) could further improve the oil recovery from this reservoir sector. 4.1. Production well selected perforation water shutoff As discussed earlier, the formation is layered with a high degree of heterogeneity and with the presence of few high mobility layers which can be ooded out relatively quickly and subsequently act as injected uids re-circulating strata. In such case, the vertical sweep efciency could be improved if the injected uids are diverted into the formation layers which have not been swept efciently. Here, the potential utilization of the water shutoff (WSO) techniques at the production well to increase oil recovery is examined from a feasibility standpoint without, however, considering either the practical considerations or the economic viability of applying such well interventions to increase the oil factors. The case that will be investigated pertains to a SWAG 3G1W injection with a constant downhole total uid injection rate that corresponds to a total uids injection rate of 200 Rm3/day, a maximum allowable injection well BHP of 450 bar and a production well BHP constraint of 300 bar. In the simulation runs, the water cut of all production well intervals is monitored and when the water cut from a given interval exceeds a specied value, the corresponding

Fig. 16. Impact of additional perforation on the compositional model for SWAG injection with total uid injection rate of 200 Rm3/day and gaswater ratio of 3:1.

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Table 4 Ultimate oil recoveries for new perforations scenarios SWAG 3G1W (qt = 200 Rm3/day) processes. New perforation location scenario Ultimate oil recovery (%) Incremental ultimate oil recovery (%) (against base case) Incremental case 1 8.99 0.07 9.58 Incremental case 2 8.47 0.05 8.83

Base case Production well only Injection well only Production and Injection wells 45.75 45.75 45.75

Case 1 54.74 45.82 55.33

Case 2 54.22 45.80 54.58

interval is then shut off. The two water cut values considered as limits are those of 95% and 98%. The resulting oil recoveries from the base case (without perforation water shutoff option) and the two water shutoff values of 95% and 98% are 45.75%, 45.51% and 50.36%, respectively. These results indicate that the nal oil recovery can be higher or lower compared to the base case when water shutoff techniques are implemented depending on the relative amount of oil left behind in the shutoff layer compared to the amount of newly mobilized oil achieved due to the injected uids diversion, in the vertical sense, following the isolation of a given perforated interval after its water cut exceeds a specied value. In that sense, the degree of existing vertical communication in the formation will play an important role in the effectiveness that the vertical formation column is being swept. WSO runs for the same operational conditions are also conducted for the SWAG 7G1W with 700 Rm3/day total uids injection. In this case, the oil recovery factors for the water shutoff cases are less than the base case (no water shutoff) due to the way the simulator reduces the injection uids rate once the injection reaches the specied maximum allowable BHP of 450 bar. The amount of the injected uids in these cases turns out to be less than 700 Rm3/day that is injected most of the time at the base case when no water shutoff takes place. The overall conclusions of the production well selective perforation water shutoff case comparison are: (a) the water shutoff 98% WC case outperforms the water shutoff 95% WC one and the base case even though the ve well completions have been shut-in after eight years and three months during the oil production period, and (b) the water shutoff 95% WC case yields lower oil recoveries since for approximately the last four years of the production cycle the oil production comes only from one open well interval and at a low production rate. 4.2. New perforations at injection and production wells The possibility of increasing the nal oil recovery from the sector model by adding new perforations at the injection and/or production wells is investigated in this subsection. The case that is presented here is that of the SWAG 3G1W process with a constant 200 Rm3/day total uid injection rate, injection well maximum BHP of 450 bar, and production well BHP constraint of 300 bar. The base case considers the production well to be perforated in seven grid blocks (with a total perforated height of 2.59 m for a 72 m vertical formation height) and the injection well is perforated in fourteen grid blocks (with a total perforated height of 3.62 m for a 64.7 m vertical formation height). The possibility of adding these perforations is only considered for the eld redevelopment period of ten-year EOR process from January 1, 2010 to January 1, 2020. Two new perforation scenarios are generated by selecting to perforate layers with an average layer horizontal permeability over 200 md and 100 md. Therefore, three perforation cases are considered: Base Case injection and production wells with original perforations; Case 1 new perforations are added to layers with average layer horizontal permeability over 200 md; and Case 2 new perforations are added

to the layers with average layer horizontal permeability higher than 100 md. For each one of these three cases, three scenarios are simulated for the SWAG 3G1W EOR process with the new perforations added (a) only to the production well, (b) only to the injection well, and (c) to both production and injection wells. The oil recovery obtained for both of these SWAG processes, well perforation cases and the three perforation scenarios are shown in Fig. 16 and summarized in Table 4. Based on these results, at the end of the ten-year SWAG EOR process: (a) perforating only the injection well yields a minimal incremental oil recovery factor compared to the base case (original well perforations) and is therefore not recommended, (b) perforating only the production well yields an incremental oil recovery factor (arithmetic average between Cases 1 and 2) of approximately 8.73% compared against the base case (recommended intervention), (c) perforating both the production and injection wells does not provide signicant incremental oil recoveries compared to perforating only the production well, and (d) the incremental oil recoveries achieved in Cases 1 and 2 are very similar to the one from the Base Case. Finally, based on results from several simulation runs for higher total uid injection rates, the impact of the injection uids rate and gaswater ratio is not very important on the achievable incremental oil recovery factor through a well perforation campaign. 5. Conclusions and recommendations This work considers the evaluation and optimization of the gasbased EOR uid injection processes via existing wellbores that can lead to an enhancing oil recovery, compared to the traditional water ooding, and provide the basis for a standalone eld redevelopment of a temporarily abandoned North Sea oil asset. Based on the results obtained from numerous simulation runs the following conclusions and recommendations can be made. Several key injection and production wells operating conditions and constraints (injected gaswater ratio, uid injection rate, as well as production and injection well BHP) have a major impact on oil production rate and achieved oil recovery factors. All investigated gas-based EOR processes for this asset assume that there is an unlimited supply of water and gas and that the required for the injection gas volumes is always available (full balance between the produced- and the injected gas). In reality this will not be the case and there will be times at which there is an excess volume or shortage of produced gas, thus causing the developed SWAG process to not operate at its designed optimum mode, at least in an isolated pilot implementation similar to the one considered in this work. However, on a full-eld scale more opportunities will exist for a better balance between the produced and injected gas for EOR purposes. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that this eld management operating constraint be fully considered and examined as part of the eld redevelopment strategy and the selected SWAG EOR process to be designed properly through the use of a history-matched, full-eld, reservoir simulation model that incorporates and integrates existing surface facilities' capabilities. All investigated gas-based EOR processes for this asset assume that the injected gas composition remains the same as the gas composition obtained from a PVT analysis of a uid sample collected at a different reservoir depth to those corresponding to this sector model. The variations of the injected gas composition as a function of time, due to the reduction of the molar fraction of the high carbon components in the produced gas stream over time, will cause a reduction of the oil recovery factors, especially for the SWAG cases of high gaswater ratios. The reported oil recoveries refer only to the sector model and do not represent nal oil recoveries that one could expect from a potential implementation of the corresponding SWAG EOR process in the

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entire eld. As discussed, this work investigated the impact of vertical heterogeneities on oil recovery assuming complete areal sweep efciency due to the nature of the models used. Extending the sector derived oil recoveries to a full-eld scale, one needs to take into account both vertical and areal sweep efciencies. For the three gas-based EOR processes (SWAG, WAG and CGI) evaluated in this work, the SWAG outperforms the other two ones (as well as the CWI), with the water and gas working in a synergetic mode; gas mobilizes the end-of-waterood residual oil and water displaces it more efciently towards the production well. More specically, the SWAG processes with the gaswater ratio of 3:1 (3G1W), for the low uids injection rate of 200 Rm3/day, and 7:1 (7G1W), for the high uids injection rate of 700 Rm3/day, yield the highest oil recovery factors. Gaswater ratio optimization for the SWAG EOR process, and with water and gas injection rates of 200 Rm3/day throughout the entire perforated column, as the gaswater ratio increases (from 1:7 to 7:1) the oil recovery increases, reaches a maximum value at an approximate gaswater ratio of 3:1, and nally decreases for larger than the optimum injected gaswater ratios. Production well BHP high values of specied production well BHP constraint result in high eld pressures, prevent reservoir pressure from declining below the saturation pressure and also promote better miscibility conditions, thus leading to high oil recovery factors. The production well BHP constraint of 300 bar gives the best oil recovery of 44.11% for the SWAG injection scenario with a gas water ratio 1:1 (SWAG 1G1W injection). Fluids injection scheme the upper formation zone contains signicant oil reserves compared to the lower one, thus much of oil recovery improvements in the amount of oil recovered comes from the oil reserves existing in that zone. The gas injection in the upper zone promotes miscibility conditions, reduces waterood residual oil saturation and has a signicant impact on oil recovery. The gas injection in the lower zone causes gas channeling, and for high injection rates viscous ngering development, through the high permeable channel facies, which results in the early gas breakthroughs and gas re-circulation. For the SWAG 1G1W scenario, water and gas injection throughout the entire perforated column results to the highest oil recovery of 44.11%. Fluids injection rate on SWAG processes high injection rates over 400 Rm3/day cause the injection well BHP to exceed the specied operational constraint value of 450 bar, thus causing the simulator to change the well injection operating mode from the constant total uid injection rate to the constant BHP and adjust the gas injection rate accordingly to meet this inner boundary condition. Therefore, the well injection rates are different from the specied gaswater ratio ones and the oil recovery comparisons should be done cautiously. Production well water shutoffs utilization of well interventions to isolate zones of high water production (through selective water shutoffs) may be effective only when the production well water cut is high, since the poor vertical layer communication does not fully promote the injected uids diversion to low permeability unswept zones and therefore, there should be a balance between the amount of oil left behind in the isolated zones and the incremental new oil recovered from the previously unswept formation zones. Injection and production well re-perforation re-perforating the production well only results to the highest incremental oil recovery factors compared to the existing well perforation scheme (approximately 8.73% for the 3G1W EOR process). Re-perforating the injection well only results to marginal changes of the oil recovery factors and re-perforating both the production and injection wells

does not provide signicant incremental oil recoveries compared to the ones obtained by perforating only the production well. Effective reservoir characterization of the formation heterogeneities (relative permeability and capillary pressure curves, horizontal and vertical permeabilities formation faults conductivity, etc.) can reduce the input data uncertainties, be benecial on properly and efciently evaluating the economic viability and designing of a eldwide application of the recommended SWAG EOR process.

Nomenclature BHP Bottom Hole Pressure (bar) CGI Continuous Gas Injection CWI Continuous Water Injection k Absolute permeability (mD) MMP Minimum Miscibility Pressure (bar) q Fluid injection rate at reservoir conditions (Rm3/day) Q Fluid injection rate at standard conditions (Sm3/day) RF Recovery Factor (%, or fraction) SWAG Simultaneous Water and Gas WAG Water Alternating Gas WSO Water Shut Off Subscripts g, o, t, w Gas, Oil, Total and Water phases h Horizontal v Vertical

Acknowledgements The rst author wishes to acknowledge the University of Stavanger (UiS) for the nancial support granted to her through the NORAD fellowship program. The permission of the eld operating company to provide the authors access to the eld data and to publish this research work as well as the constructive comments received from colleagues are also acknowledged. References
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