Simulation Study on Improved Oil Recovery for Thin Oil Rims

• Main Author: Yee Ling, Chang
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: IRC 2014
• Subjects: TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/14549/1/Chang%20Yee%20Ling_14308_FYP.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/14549/
• Institution: Universiti Teknologi Petronas

Most oil reservoirs contain aquifer and gas cap. For every oil reservoir, the decrease in oil or gas production and increased operating expenses cause less profits. With limited technology and narrowed thin oil rims, reservoir management and improved oil recovery methods are facing challenges. The main problem for economic is because both water and gas coning could minimize oil production and hinder recovery of the thin oil rim. Thus, the objectives of this study is to overcome the challenges in thin oil rims reservoir and to produce a simulation model which thin oil rims reservoir is producing with improved oil recovery methods. To generate the similar simulation model in order to meet the objectives, model of thin oil rim was generated using ECLIPSE E100. By creating uncertainties and six cases with different injected fluid rate, well spacing and injection fluid properties, cases are compared with base case by generating total oil production vs time, gas-oil ratio vs time and total water produced vs time graph. The main scenarios generated are the horizontal well, the combination of horizontal well and peripheral and fencing water injection, horizontal well and down dip gas injection and up dip water injection, and lastly, horizontal well and polymer flooding. The best scenario will be the case with best total oil produced with lesser produced water and gas. Overall, polymer flooding provides the highest oil production with relatively lesser water and gas production due to its properties in increasing water viscosity to sweep away oil in regions. Future work could be recommended on fluid properties of polymer and its optimal injection rate.