Summary of Immiscible WAG at Tapis Field, Malaysia

Tapis field is located in the Malay Basin, offshore Peninsular Malaysia. The field
contains approximately 1 billion barrels OOIP. Production at Tapis started in 1978. The
field has more than 100 wells with typical well spacing ranging between 80 to 100 acres.
To date, waterflooding has been conducted in the field with recovery factor between 40 to
45% OOIP.
Geology
Tapis field is made up of stacked sandstone reservoirs of the Lower Miocene Group J and
Group I respectively. These reservoirs are made of marginal marine to fluvial deposits,
with vertical and areal variation in reservoir quality. Group J particularly has moderate
degree of bioturbation. The Tapis J reservoirs have typical average permeability between
50 mD and 300 mD and reservoir pressure ranges from 1500 to 2500 psia, with reservoir
temperatures of up to 250 F. The field contains saturated, light crude with 45 API
gravity. Most of the reservoirs have gas caps, with the largest at Tapis Central fault block.
Immiscible WAG is amenable for recovery process beyond waterflood since the field has
light crude, relatively high reservoir temperature with low reservoir pressure.
Laboratory Work
Laboratory work consisted of slim tube tests, swelling tests and tertiary corefloods. The
study concluded that immiscible WAG injection using separator hydrocarbon gas to be
the most viable IOR/EOR process. Slim tube test was performed to find the minimum
miscibility pressure (MMP). The results have shown that MMP for CO 2 and separator gas
is about 3400 psia and 5300 psia, which is higher than the reservoir pressure of 2400 psia.
The MMP is also higher than the fracture pressure of 3200 psia. The high MMP
requirement excludes application of miscible process.
Simulation Work
Simulation studies were completed in stages due to the size of the field. The first stage
consisted of East Fault Block Lower J reservoir, which accounted about one third of the
field resource. The second stage was done on Central West Fault Block Lower J
reservoir. The third stage was Upper J reservoir. The simulation was done using black oil
models for faster results. It was initialized and history matched using proprietary
software. The fluid model was calibrated to match actual PVT properties from Tapis
reservoir fluids. Three scenarios were tested during simulations: IWAG with separator
HC gas, IWAG with CO2 and IWAG with LPG. Results have predicted that IWAG using
readily available separator HC gas would yield up to 7% OOIP incremental oil recovery
over 20 yeas of production. Both CO2 and LPG were excluded since the former involved
higher cost with acidic gas operation and the latter was economically unattractive.

IWAG Implementation
The proposed implementation would be divided according to major fault blocks in the
field. There are 4 fault blocks: North FB, East FB, South FB and West FB. For the North
FB and East FB, it was suggested to use existing 3:1 line drive waterflood pattern as
WAG injectors. This would save cost, particularly when this operation would be
conducted offshore and drilling new well is very expensive. Alternative options for these
fault blocks were to have a closed WAG pattern or downdip gas injection. In a closed
WAG pattern, new updip WAG injectors would be drilled while the existing downdip
producers would be converted into WAG injectors. This was intended to reduce injected
gas migration into gas cap. The recovery was predicted to be similar to 3:1 line drive.
This option was not pursued since it was costly. The other alternative was to convert
downdip wells into injectors. This was aimed to maximize areal sweep. However, this
option was also aborted since simulation predicted the scheme would yield low recovery
due to unstable gravity displacement.
IWAG would not be implemented in the South FB and West FB. This is because both
blocks have conditions unfavorable for WAG process. For South FB, it would continue
producing under natural depletion with gas cap drive while crestal gas injection would be
initiated in West FB since it is more cost-effective.
Based on simulation studies, IWAG would be implemented with a six-month cycle
between gas and water injection. This was considered practical due to significant number
of wells to be switched from gas to water injection service and vice versa, each cycle.
Additionally, the optimum WAG ratio is between 10 and 30%.
Facilities design was also considered in the project implementation. In the planning, a
central processing platform would be installed to accommodate higher gas production
rate in WAG. Furthermore, a riser platform would be added to manage safety risk
associated with many high-pressure gas pipelines. Apart from that, 50 km of intra-field
subsea pipelines would be installed together with subsea tie-in to nearby field to bring
make-up gas to initiate WAG. Some 60 idle wells would undergo workover to restore
them into operation.
Conclusion
Simulation studies predicted that immiscible WAG would bring additional 7% OOIP
incremental recovery over the next 20 years. This was achieved with the optimal WAG
pattern using the existing 3:1 waterflood line drive with 6 months injection cycle at 3:1
ratio. The project would begin by end of 2013.