Seminar Report

On
“Water Breakthrough”
Submitted
To
Savitribai Phule Pune University
By

GAURAW RAGHAV SINGH

T150026726
Third Year (Petroleum Engineering)
Department of Petroleum Engineering,
MAEER’s Maharashtra Institute of Technology,
124, Paud Road, Pune -411038
 Certificate

This is to certify that, seminar report entitled “Water Breakthrough” submitted by

Mr. GAURAW RAGHAV SINGH, Exam Seat number: TE150026726, Third Year
Petroleum Engineering, is a record of bonafide work carried out by him under my
supervision, in partial fulfillment for Third Year Course requirement of University
of Pune, Pune.

Prof Dr. P. B. Jadhav, Prof Amey Dashputre,

Head, Date:
Department of Petroleum Engineering, Seminar Supervisor.
MAEER’s Maharashtra Institute of Technology,
124, Paud Road, Pune -411038
 Acknowledgement

I would like to thanks Prof. Amey Dashputre and Prof. Hrishikesh Chavan
for his kind co-operation and encouragement which helped me in completion of this
project. For his unwavering support and encouragement in writing of this report.

I would like to thank the Faculty of Department of Petroleum engineering for

all their support during submission of this report.

Other friends and colleagues were also crucial in problem solving and in the
development phase of this report. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all of
them.

GAURAW RAGHAV SINGH

T150026726
Third Year (Petroleum Engineering)
Department of Petroleum Engineering,
MAEER’s Maharashtra Institute of Technology,
124, Paud Road, Pune -411038
Sr. Chapter no Content Page no
No
1 Abstract 1

2 Chapter 1 2.1Introduction – Water 2

Breakthrough Water coning
2.2Introduction – Water
breakthrough Fractured Reservoirs

3 Chapter 2 Breakthrough Time in Vertical wells 6

4 Chapter 3 Detection of Water Breakthrough 9

5 Chapter 4 Solution to Water Breakthrough – 11

Water Coning
6 Chapter 5 Techniques Used to Improve Oil 16
Recovery in Fractured Reservoirs
7 Chapter 6 Model of Waterflooding Using 26
Fractured Reservoirs Using Ecrin
8 Conclusion 29

9 References 30
 ABSTRACT

Water breakthrough occurs during production of oil & gas and also occurs in
fractured reservoirs (Carbonate Reservoirs) during waterflooding. It causes problems during
waterflooding, reduces the oil recovery. One of the principal problems encountered in the water
flooding operation is water breakthrough from the flood front to the producing well relatively early
in the displacement process, and rapidly increasing producing water/oil ratios following this initial
water breakthrough. These difficulties are caused by the aqueous displacing medium channeling
through the oil-bearing structure to the producing well, thus bypassing large zones of the oil-
bearing strata.

Water entry into a reservoir may be through an edge or the bottom of the reservoir.
When water rises vertically into a reservoir, then the reservoir is said to be experiencing bottom
water drive. On the other hand, it is said to be experiencing edge water if the water moves into the
reservoir through its edge.

During Waterflooding i.e. secondary recovery of oil, mainly water breakthrough

occurs in fractured reservoirs (Carbonate) and heterogeneous reservoirs as Carbonate reservoirs
lightly oil wet to strong oil wet reservoirs. When water is injected through injection well water
passes through fracture (Due to very high permeability) and not the matrix thus decreases in
volumetric sweep efficiency resulting in decrease of oil recovery in fractured reservoirs. To
overcome problem of water breakthrough, foam Injection and selective plugging is used.

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 Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Water Breakthrough-Water Coning

Water serves the dual purpose of maintaining pressure and displacing oil towards
the production wells. These two facts are valid for both water injection and edge water systems.
Under water drive where the reservoir fluid is more viscous than the encroaching water, the water
tends to bypass the oil. At low flow rates, the difference in specific gravity of fluids
counterbalances the effect of difference in viscosity and keeps bypassing of oil.

Coning is the mechanism describing the movement of water into the perforations
of producing wells. For water coning the movement is upwards for the case of bottom water and
sideward for edge water. The production of water from oil wells is a common occurrence which
increases the cost of production and also undercuts the efficiency of the depletion drive mechanism
and consequently, the recovery of reserves.

Fig 1 Water Coning Due to Excessively high flow rate

Image Source: E. Bedaiwi, B. D. Al-Anazi, A. F. Al-Anazi and A.

M. Paiaman

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 The coning of water into production wells is caused by two main forces; pressure
gradient and gravitational force. Pressure gradient is established around the wellbore by the
production of fluids from the well and actually raises the water-oil contact near the well where the
gradients are dominant. The gravity force arises from the fluid density differences and
counterbalances the flowing pressure gradients to keep the water out of the oil zone. Therefore,
there is a balance between the gravitational and the viscous forces at any given time at any point
on and away from the completion interval.

Conventionally, water coning is considered as a cause of early water production in

bottom water drive reservoirs. However, in edge-water drive systems with unfavorable mobility
ratios, water tongues may underrun oil and provide the conditions for water coning to partially
completed wells.

Water coning is an unavoidable phenomenon in an aquifer supported reservoirs. Its

development in producing reservoirs greatly affects the productivity of wells, and eventually
results in their shut-in after breakthrough.

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1.2 Water Breakthrough in Fractured Reservoirs

Naturally fractured carbonate reservoirs are geological formations characterized

by a heterogeneous distribution of porosity and permeability. A common scenario is low porosity
and low permeability matrix blocks surrounded by a tortuous, highly permeable fracture network.
In this case, the overall fluid flow in the reservoir strongly depends on the flow properties of the
fracture network, with the isolated matrix blocks acting as the hydrocarbon storage. Most reservoir
rocks are to some extent fractured, but the fractures have in many cases insignificant effect on fluid
flow performance and may be ignored.

In naturally fractured reservoirs, defined as reservoirs where the fractures have

a significant impact on performance and oil recovery, fracture properties should be evaluated
because they control the efficiency of oil production. Fractures are usually caused by brittle failure
induced by geological features such as folding, faulting, weathering and release of lithostatic
(overburden) pressure.

Fig 2 Water Breakthrough- Fractured Reservoir (Heterogenous) -Viscous Fingering

Image Source: http://www.lowshearschool.com/?page_id=17110

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 The presence of fractures dramatically influences the flow of fluids in a reservoir
because of the large contrast in transmissibility between the fracture and the matrix. High
permeable fractures carry most of the flow, and therefore limit the buildup of large differential
pressures across the reservoir. The limited viscous forces are negative for production during e.g. a
waterflood, where most of the water flows in the fracture network only and does not displace oil
from the matrix blocks, leading to poor sweep efficiency and low recoveries.

Dependence of waterflood in wettability, in an oil-wet, fractured reservoir, water

will not spontaneously displace oil from the matrix, and only the oil in the fractures will be
displaced, resulting in poor recoveries and early water breakthrough. In water-wet fractured
reservoirs, imbibition can lead to significant recoveries. The recovery of oil from fractured
reservoirs is controlled by the interaction between brine/oil/rock interaction, which again depends
on the wetting and two-phase flow, the chemical and physical properties of all of the three
components, fracture geometry and pore structure of the matrix.

Image Source: International Journal for Research in Applied Science

& Engineering Technology, Dr. R. Giri Prasad

Fig 3 Water Breakthrough- (Heterogenous Reservoir) -Viscous Fingering

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 Chapter 2. Breakthrough Time
2.1 Breakthrough Time in Vertical Wells
Critical flow rate calculations frequently show low rates that, for economic reasons, cannot be
imposed on production wells. Therefore, if a well produces above its critical rate, the cone will
break through after a given time period. This time is called time to breakthrough tBT

• The Sobocinski-Cornelius Method

• The Bournazel-Jeanson Method

The Sobocinski-Cornelius Method

Sobocinski and Cornelius (1965) developed a correlation for predicting water breakthrough time
based on laboratory data and modeling results. The authors correlated the breakthrough time with
two dimensionless parameters, the dimensionless cone height and the dimensionless breakthrough
time. Those two dimensionless parameters are defined by the following expressions

Equation 1

Equation 2

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 Equation 3

Equation 4

where ρ = density, lb/ft3

kh = horizontal permeability, md
Qo = oil production rate, STB/day
hp = perforated interval, ft
h = oil column thickness, fttBT = time to breakthrough, days

Φ= porosity, fraction

kv = vertical permeability, md
M = water-oil mobility

kro)swc = oil relative permeability at connate water saturation

(krw)sor = water relative permeability at residual oil saturation
α= 0.5 for M ≤1
α= 0.6 for 1≤M≤10

If Z = 3.5 or greater, there will be no water breakthrough.

with Z = 3.5 to give an expression for calculating the critical oil flow rate,

Equation 5

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The Bournazel-Jeanson Method

Based on experimental data, Bournazel and Jeanson (1971) developed a methodology that uses the
same dimensionless groups proposed in the Sobocinski-Cornelius method.
The procedure of calculating the time to breakthrough is given below.
Step 1. Calculate the dimensionless core height Z from Equation 1
Step 2. Calculate the dimensionless breakthrough time by applying the following expression:

Equation 6

Step 3. Solve for the time to breakthrough tBT by substituting the above-calculated
dimensionless breakthrough time into Equation 3

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 Chapter 3. Detection of Water Breakthrough

A system and method for estimating an occurrence of a water breakthrough in a production well
is provided that includes estimating, at least periodically, a measure of water in the fluid produced
from one or more production Zones and estimating the occurrence of the water breakthrough
utilizing at least in part trend of the estimated measures of the produced fluid. A controller
determines one or more actions to be taken to mitigate an effect of the water breakthrough and
may automatically initiate one or more Such actions.
A method of predicting an occurrence of a water breakthrough in a well that is producing fluid
from one or more production Zones

1.The method includes utilizing one or more measurements relating to the presence or an amount
of water in the fluid produced from a production Zone to predict the occurrence of a water
breakthrough

2. The method may predict an estimated time or time period of the occurrence of the water
breakthrough and may send certain messages or warning signals to one or more locations, provide
recommended actions that may be taken to reduce the risk of damage to the well, and may
automatically initiate or take one or more actions to mitigate an effect of the water breakthrough
on the well

3.A control unit that has a processor, a memory for storing a program and a database, wherein the
processor using the computer program and water content measurements over time provides an
estimate or prediction of water breakthrough. The processor may send messages and recommended
actions to be taken at one or more locations relating to the water breakthrough and may
automatically initiate or take one or more of the recommended actions.

4.A computer-readable medium is provided that is accessible to a processor for executing

instructions contained in a computer program embedded in the computer-readable medium,
wherein the computer program includes instructions to at least periodically utilize a measure of

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water in the fluid produced by at least one production Zone and one or models to predict the
occurrence of a water breakthrough

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 Chapter 4. Solution to Water Breakthrough – Water Coning

4.1 Drilling Horizontal Wells

Drilling horizontal well below Gas oil Contact (GOC) than conventional vertical well in aquifer
supported reservoir helps to mitigate the problem of coning, though full problem may not be
reduced but breakthrough time of water to producer well increases. The below Images shows in
the same reservoir by drilling horizontal well breakthrough time Increases.

Fig 4 Comparison Between Horizontal well and Vertical well

Image Source: Tarek Ahmed Reservoir engineering Handbook

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4.2 Fracturing Horizontal Well to Offset Water Production

Horizontal drain holes in thick, high-permeability reservoirs have been used

effectively to produce many reservoirs in the Middle East. Many of these bottom-water-drive
reservoirs have natural fractures intersecting the wellbore that connect through the oil-water
contact. Therefore, they are susceptible to water encroachment through natural fractures when high
drawdowns are applied. The resulting water production leads to a number of well maintenance
problems and reduces the efficiency of the completion.
Hydraulically fracturing these horizontal drain holes can offer a number of
benefits including reduced water influx. The placement of several small and/or a few large
hydraulic fractures at pre-designed intervals in the horizontal wellbore would significantly
improve the deliverability of the reservoir and thus reduce the drawdown necessary to achieve
optimum production. It is of course necessary to keep the fractures from penetrating into the water-
bearing formation. Since most of these wellbores are uncased, open hole completions, a special
fracturing technique has been used that allows precise placement of these fractures without the
need for mechanical
isolation of intervals during the fracturing operation. Production modeling of a horizontal
completion in reservoirs with bottom water encroachment through natural fractures will be
compared to a hydraulically fractured
completion with the same conditions
The potential of using hydraulic fracturing as a remediation technique for water
production problems. Reservoirs with high permeability producing through vertical wellbores
have seen production benefits through the use of hydraulic fracturing. Most of these benefits are
due to overcoming loss of permeability near-wellbore as a result of reservoir compaction and fines
migration or simply from bypassing near-wellbore damage created by drilling the well in an
overbalanced condition.
A completion using horizontal wellbores in high-perm reservoirs has been used effectively to gain
reservoir contact.
However, there are factors that heavily influence the effectiveness of this completion method:
• Drilling damage in the near-wellbore area.
• Vertical to horizontal permeability anisotropy.
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• Vertical natural fractures connected to the wellbore and penetrating through the oil/water or
gas/oil contact.
• High horizontal permeability streaks with edgewater drive mechanism.
Wellbore damage due to openhole exposure to drilling fluids while drilling long
horizontal laterals is especially problematic for high-permeability reservoirs. The depth of invasion
of damaging fluids can be deeper than most matrix type stimulation processes can effectively
influence. In addition, placement control of matrix-type treatments can present problems in
openhole laterals. Vertical to horizontal permeability anisotropy can vary substantially throughout
the pay intervals and at best will represent a kv/kh < 0.7. The lower the ratio, the greater the impact
on vertical drainage efficiency, and typically the higher the drawdown required to produce the
upper or lower layers.
Some reservoirs contain vertical natural fractures that can reduce the issue of
permeability anisotropy for horizontal wellbores; however, these same natural fractures can often
extend above the gas/oil contact or below the oil/water contact. When high drawdown pressures
are used to produce these reservoirs, water or gas production can quickly dominate the total
production.2-5 Many high-permeability reservoirs are prime candidates for waterflooding. Again,
permeability anisotropy can play a significant role in waterflooding effectiveness for horizontal
completions, particularly in the case where a dominant high horizontal permeability streak exists
across the field. Early water breakthrough can lead to very poor recovery efficiency and high well
maintenance costs. Reservoir simulation can play an important role in assessing the value of
hydraulic fracturing for horizontal completions when water encroachment conditions may exist.

Horizontal Well Effectiveness in Presence of an Aquifer

When an oil reservoir overlies an aquifer, drilling vertical wells usually represents a
dilemma. To minimize coning of water in the vertical well, perforation is limited to the top part of
the well. This keeps the productive part of the well away from the aquifer. However, to make the
well economical, it is often needed to produce the well at a high rate, which causes a high pressure
drop near the wellbore. High-pressure drop near the wellbore encourages movement of water from
the aquifer into the wellbore. Horizontal well drilling has been used in the presence of an aquifer
to minimize this effect. By drilling the horizontal well near the apex of the formation, it
hypothesized that this would further improve productivity of the horizontal well without adversely
affecting the cresting process
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Presence of High-Permeability Streak
Presence of high-permeability natural fractures that connect the horizontal well to the
aquifer will cause water breakthrough even in the presence of horizontal shale barriers. Fracturing
later in the life of the horizontal well will help.
is possible to produce the well at a high rate while keeping the pressure drop near the wellbore
small. It is

Fig 5 Image Source: Fracturing Horizontal Wells to Offset Water Production

M.Y. Soliman, Loyd East, and James Pyecroft, Halliburton

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Horizontal Well Fracturing Process
A relatively new method for fracturing past near-wellbore drilling-induced
damage has been shown effective in both cased hole and openhole horizontal completions.8-13
Often referred to as hydrajet-assisted fracturing (HJAF), the process has also been shown to
effectively stimulate long openhole sections of a wellbore and multi-lateral wellbores. The focused
fluid energy allows pinpoint placement of the induced fractures without the need for packer
isolation. this patented process has been successfully applied globally on land wells, offshore, and
Deepwater offshore completions.19 The process is applicable in single or multi-lateral open hole
horizontals, horizontal slotted liners, horizontal laterals with sand screened liners, and cemented-
cased horizontal wellbores. To date, more than 300 horizontal wells have been stimulated using
this process.

The HJAF process can be accomplished using coiled tubing, tubing, or drill pipe,
with the majority of these treatments to date being executed using jointed tubing. However, many
variations of the technique have proven to be successful and coiled tubing applications are showing
great success.

The hydrajet-fracturing technique is essentially a combination of three processes:

hydrajetting to perforate and erode tunnels into the wellbore wall, through-tubing hydraulic-
fracture initiation and extension while jetting (by stagnation pressure and dynamic diversion from
the Bernoulli effect), and annulus injection using a separate fluid system. Several adaptations of
the HJAF process have been used successfully depending on the reservoir and fracturing
objectives.

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 Chapter 5. Techniques Used to Improve Oil Recovery in Fractured
Reservoirs

5.1 Selective plugging To Highly Heterogenous Reservoirs

The recovery of oil from subterranean petroleum reservoirs of varying

permeability, and more particularly to a method of recovering oil from heterogeneous reservoirs
by water flooding.Since only a portion of the oil contained in a petroleum reservoir can be
recovered by primary methods, it has become conventional practice to employ various secondary
and tertiary recovery techniques to produce additional quantities of oil not economically
recoverable by primary methods. Of the various secondary and tertiary recovery methods
available, one of the most widely practiced techniques is the displacement of the oil from the
reservoir with a displacement fluid injected for that purpose, such as commonly employed in
water flooding.
Normally, in carrying out the waterflooding process, a series of input wells
approximately equidistant from a producing well are drilled into and opened to the same oil
producing strata. One of the major problems encountered in the water flooding operating is water
breakthrough from the flood front to the producing well relatively early in the displacement
process, and rapidly increasing producing water oil ratios following this initial water breakthrough.
These difficulties result from the aqueous displacing medium channeling or fingering through the
oil-bearing structure to the producing well, thus bypassing large zones of the oil-bearing strata.
While a uniform flood front with reduced fingering can be obtained with a displacement fluid
rendered more viscous by the addition of various water-soluble polymers or other materials
capable of imparting higher viscosity to the flood water, viscous water flooding alone is not fully
effective in all formations. The reason for the lack of suitable recovery in these formations is due,
in part, to the peculiar structure of the oil-bearing strata. Underground oil reservoirs, in most cases,
consist of layers of sand or rock and, since no reservoir rock is perfectly uniform in composition
and structure, the permeability will vary across the rock face or stratum. Also, fractures, cracks,
vugs and other.
In the normal flooding operation, the ideal situation for maximum recovery of
oil is obtained when the driven fluid is per mitted to build up in a wide bank in front of the driving

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fluid which moves uniformly towards the producing well. To keep this bank of oil intact, and
constantly moving towards the producing well, a substantially uniform permeability must exist
throughout the strata. If this uniform permeability does not exist or is not provided, the flooding
fluid will seek the areas of high permeability, and channeling occurs with the consequent loss of
some driving fluid energy and appearance of excess displacement fluid in the producing well.
Moreover, as the more permeable strata are depleted, the water has a tendency to follow channels
and further increase consumption of flooding water to the point where the process becomes
economically undesirable.
This maximum limit, in terms of recovered oil, can be as high as 100 barrels of
driving fluid per barrel of oil. It is of course desirable to operate at much lower water to oil ratios,
and normally five to 10 barrels of water per barrel of recovered oil is considered an acceptable
operating condition.
More uniform flood fronts can be obtained in formations of non-uniform
permeability by control or adjustment of the permeability of the more permeable strata of the
formation in the flood zone. A number of methods of reducing the permeability of these permeable
strata have been proposed, including the injection of plugging materials into these strata to at least
partially plug the permeable zones so as to achieve more uniform permeability. Some of these
methods of permeability adjustment accomplish the plugging step by the in situ information of
plugging material in the permeable strata by injecting one or more reactant substances which
chemically react to form a solid residue. The reactant substance can react with a substance naturally
occurring in the structure, or with a second reactant material injected for that purpose. These
reactant substances include various hydraulic cements, precipitate forming materials, and
monomers or prepolymers which are polymerizable under formation conditions.
As an example of these plugging materials, the injection of solutions which on
introduction into the permeable strata react to produce a precipitate that obstructs the pores and
provides limited control of porosity improved water flooding process for recovering oil from
heterogeneous petroleum reservoirs having strata of different permeabilities which plugging
precipitates are successively formed in regions of the reservoir progressively further from the
injection well. Each plugging treatment is carried out by successively injecting two aqueous
solutions, each containing a chemically reactive agent that is adapted to react with the agent in the
other solution to form a plugging precipitate when brought into contact with each other in the

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reservoir. The reactant solutions are maintained separated during injection by an inert spacer liquid
injected between the reactant slugs, the amount of spacer liquid being increased in each successive
plugging treatment to cause the precipitate to be formed in a region of
the reservoir progressively further from the injection well. Preferably, the type and amount of
precipitate formed is selected to partially but not completely obstruct the pores of the more
permeable zones of the reservoir
The fluids injected in the foregoing manner preferentially enter the more
permeable strata of the formation and pass outwardly from the injection well through these strata.
At some region of the formation removed from the injection well, depending on the amount of
spacing fluid employed and the degree of fingering encountered, the reactant solutions will come
into contact and plugging precipitate will be produced. As the precipitate is formed, plugging
occurs and the subsequently injected fluids are diverted into other of the permeable strata.
However, as fluid injection is continued, the injected fluids tend to reenter the more permeable of
the strata at a point beyond the plugged region due to cross-flow between the various strata.
Accordingly, the plug remains effective for only a limited portion of the flooding operation,
necessitating subsequent plugging treatments. It is believed that in this flooding method, the
precipitate formed by subsequent plugging treatments is deposited in regions of the formation
further removed from the injection well, thereby continuing the diversion of the flooding medium
into the less permeable strata and displacing oil from strata that would not otherwise be contacted
by the flooding medium.
A wide variety of water-soluble reactants can be used water-soluble salts of
certain metals and an alkaline substance produce insoluble precipitates. Suitable water-soluble
salts include the salts of iron, aluminum, calcium, cobalt, nickel, copper, mercury, silver, lead,
chromium, zinc, cadmium and magnesium. The water-soluble salts of these metals produce a
precipitate of a basic metal compound when brought into contact with an alkaline solution.
Exemplary of the alkaline solutions are aqueous solutions of sodium hydroxide, sodium carbonate,
sodium borate, sodium silicate, sodium phosphate, or the potassium or ammonium salts of these
anions.
In selecting the particular reactants to be used, some con sideration of the type
of precipitate desired is necessary. Generally, it is desirable to produce a gelatinous type of
precipitate which will form an insoluble precipitate adherent to the pore walls. Such a precipitate

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is advantageous in view of the relatively high pressures existing on the driving fluid which in turn
will be exerted against the precipitate. While a wide variety of compounds can be used to
effectively carry out this method, consideration should be given to the selection of the reactants
with respect to the strata in which the desired precipitate is expected to be formed, as it is well
known certain types of strata contain various mineral substances which are capable of reacting
with chemical solutions to form precipitates. In addition, the naturally existing brines also contain
mineral substances capable of reacting with certain chemical solutions to form precipitates. To
avoid such occurrences, care should be taken to select as the reactant components those chemicals
which will be inert to the surrounding strata on introduction into the well. Also, in some
applications it may be desirable to employ reactants that form a double precipitate on being brought
into contact in a subterranean formation. By double precipitate it is meant that both of the products
of the reaction are substantially insoluble and act to plug the formation. A particularly preferred
reactant combination is sodium silicate and calcium chloride.

Example: Difference Between Conventional Waterflooding and Selective Plugging

A (Conventional Flooding).
The recovery of oil from a heterogeneous reservoir by conventional water flooding is
demonstrated by the following test flood of a model simulating a heterogeneous reservoir having
strata of different permeabilities and which is susceptible to cross-flow between the strata. The
flooding operation is conducted by separately injecting brine into each of the sand packs at an
injection pressure of 30 p.s. i.g. Produced fluids are recovered and the respective amounts of oil
and water measured. A total of 42.4 percent of the initial oil-in-place is recovered by injecting 3.0
pore volumes of brine.

B (Selective Plugging).
The oil recovery method by Selective Plugging is demonstrated by this test. The model is prepared
and saturated with oil as described in example 1. The flooding operation is conducted by first
injecting 0.05 pore volume of an aqueous 2 percent solution of sodium silicate and 0.05 pore
volume of an aqueous 2 percent solution of calcium chloride separated by 0.01 pore volume of
brine. These agents are displaced into the sand packs by injecting 0.30 pore volume of brine. Next,
0.05 pore volume each of sodium silicate solution and calcium chloride solution are injected, these

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agents being separated by 0.05 pore volume of brine. Again, the reactive agents are displaced into
the sand pack by the injection of 0.30 pore volumes of the plugging step is repeated a third time
with the reactive agents being separated by 0.10 pore volume of inert spacer liquid, and the
flooding operation completed by the injection of brine.

Oil Recovery by Conventional Water Flooding

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 Oil Recovery by Selective Plugging

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5.2 Foam Injection

EOR by foam injection in fractured reservoirs

Oil production from fractured oil reservoirs poses great challenges to the oil
industry, particularly because fractures may exhibit permeabilities that are several orders of
magnitude higher than the permeability of the rock matrix. Low viscosity fluids used for enhanced
oil recovery, such as gases or supercritical fluids may channel into the high permeable fractures,
potentially leading to early breakthrough into the production well and low sweep efficiency.
Carbonate reservoirs usually exhibit low porosity and may be extensively fractured. The oil-wet
nature of the matrix reduces capillary imbibition of water.
Carbonate reservoirs contributes substantially to US oil reserves and the low
primary recovery and the large number of carbonate reservoirs in the US and around the world
makes them good targets for EOR efforts. Foam has the potential to increase oil recovery by
improving areal sweep, better vertical sweep (less gravity override), less viscous fingering, and
diversion of gas away from higher permeable or previously swept layers Diversion of gas into
lower-permeable layers using foams have previously been reported .This may be important for
fractured systems, where a very large permeability contrast exists and cross-flow between the
zones occur

The application of foam to enhance oil recovery was studied at different length
scales in fractured systems with complementary imaging techniques. Experiments were performed
on the micro scale, core plug scale, and the block scale to study the use of foam in a fractured
system to improve oil recovery. At the micro scale the mechanism for gas and liquid transport
from the fracture to the matrix was investigated. Liquid snap off at the pore throat was observed
as a mechanism for foam generation within the matrix, whereas large pressure fluctuations along
the fracture lead to foam invasion from the fracture to the matrix. At the core scale the added oil
recovery during foam injection compared to gas injection was demonstrated in a fracture core plug
with the presence of oil in the matrix. The increased pressure drop across the fracture contributed
to fluid transport from the fracture to the matrix and displacement of oil. The wettability of the
core plug was weakly oil-wet reflecting the reservoir wetting preference in several large carbonate
oil fields. The same process was studied in at the block scale, where three forces (gravity, viscous,

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and capillary) were active simultaneously. The injection of pre-generated foam greatly increased
recovery by increasing the differential pressure across the system. Foam injection was compared
to waterfloods, surfactant injection, pure gas injection and co-injection of surfactant and gas.
Experimental results at each length scale are described in detail in the sections below.

Fig 6 Image Source: Enhanced Oil Recovery in Fractured Reservoirs Martin A. Fernø Department of Physics and
Technology, University of Bergen Norway

The effect of foam on the transport of gas from the fracture to the matrix. Left column: pure gas injection with gas flow was only in fracture.
Right column: foam injection displacing water in the fracture and the matrix. In each image, sand grains are white, the aqueous surfactant
solution is blue, gas is red, and the interface between the gas and the surfactant is black.

Enhanced oil recovery by foam injection during gravity drainage was studied
numerically by reducing the gas mobility. Water and oil were produced at the bottom of the
fracture at the instance they were displaced from the matrix, resulting in the fracture always being
gas-filled. With decreased fracture permeability, the mobility of all fluids was reduced, increasing
the viscous forces in the system. Similar results were where decreasing fracture transmissibility
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increased oil recovery during waterfloods. In the case of foam flow in fractured media, the apparent
foam viscosity is more important for oil recovery than the reduction in fracture transmissibility
because increased foam viscosity leads to increased differential pressure and the increased oil
recovery.
The application of foam as an EOR technique in fractured reservoirs will also
lead to improved sweep efficiency. This is essential in highly heterogeneous reservoirs, where the
majority of fluid flow is concentrated in the high permeable zones. Continuous foam injection at
fixed injection rate may improve sweep efficiency by raising the injection-well pressure but the
pressure increase may be undesirable in conventional, un-fractured reservoirs, where a rise in
injection-well pressure could damage the well. For fractured reservoirs, the pressure drop
generated by the low-mobility foam, extending from the displacement front back to the injection
well, is an important mechanism to improve the sweep efficiency. The injection of pre-generated
foam reported at the core and block scale was successful with respect to oil production, which
significantly increased recovery in all samples. The process was inefficient in terms of the number
of pore volumes required to recover the oil. Economically viable production rates and reduction
of surfactant cost could be achieved by taking the necessary steps to reduce foam collapse, which
could be caused by any of the mechanisms previously outlined. The increase of the foam tolerance
to oil is a proven method to make foam injections more efficient.
Foam injection as an EOR technique at field scale should be considered to
reduce gravity override and injectivity issues. Foam injection was successfully implemented on
the Norwegian Continental Shelf in the Snorre field as a Foam-Assisted-Water-Alternating-Gas
(FAWAG). This project revealed that important parameters for the success of foam injectivity
were surfactant adsorption, critical surfactant concentration, foam drying effect, foam oil
tolerance, and foam strength . Foam efficiency could also be improved with smaller well-spacing
(Awan et al., 2008). A surfactant pre-flush that alters the wettability of the fracture surface
(removes oil) may benefit foam stability in the fracture. In vertical fractures, care should be taken
to limit gravity segregated fluid flow during co-injection of aqueous and gaseous phases. During
gas injection projects, foam should be injected as early as possible after gas. Foam injection in
combination with other EOR efforts may also improve economics, for instance foam in
combination with ASP flooding or polymer gels .

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 Fig 7 Image Source: Enhanced Oil Recovery in Fractured Reservoirs Martin A. Fernø Department of Physics and Technology,
University of Bergen Norway

The effect of foam as an EOR technique in fractured, oil-wet carbonate block sample

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Chapter 6. Model of Waterflooding in Fractured Reservoirs Using Ecrin

Using Ecrin Rubis software we can make model and initiate and run the simulation

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In below image there are four injector wells and one producer well

After water flooding, oil is recovered at higher percentage as this is not fractured reservoirs

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When the Reservoir is fractured the waterflooding is not efficient, because the water from
injector well enters the producer wells

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 CONCLUSIONS

Oil is the prime source of energy which keeps on driving the present technologies, it is much
needed resources.

From Primary drive mechanism oil recovery is about 10% to 40 %. That (60%) much of oil is still
left behind the reservoirs.

So, to recover that oil section we do secondary recovery (waterflooding and gas flooding) and after
that Tertiary recovery (Enhanced oil recovery) after Secondary or Tertiary recovery oil is 60 –
80% recovered.

While producing oil at higher rates, there is building of water cone in the well and thus water
breakthrough is inevitable and to overcome we drill horizontal well.

As we do secondary and tertiary recovery to improve oil recovery, but in heterogenous and
fractured Reservoir, when we do waterflooding there will be initial water breakthrough thus
leading to low oil recovered.

So, to overcome problem in heterogenous and fractured reservoirs, we use techniques like selective
plugging and foam injection to improve oil recoveries.

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 REFERENCES

Tarek Ahmed. “Reservoir Engineering Handbook”

M. Latil (1980). “Enhanced Oil Recovery,” Gulf Publishing Company Houston, TX. Reservoir
Engineering Research Unit Institut Francais du Petrole.1980 Editions Technip, Paris.

LP Dake. “The Practice of Reservoir Engineering”

Don W. Green, Paul G. Willhite “Enhanced Oil Recovery” (1998). AIME SPE Richardson, Texas.

International Journal of Engineering Research in Africa Vol. 11V.E. “Factors Affecting Water
Breakthrough Time of a Vertical Well Subject to double-Edge Water Drive Mechanism” V.E.
Dongo, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria

Canadian international Petroleum Conference PAPER 2004-269 “Early Water Production and
Bypassed Oil in Edge Water Drive Reservoirs” O. ARSLAN, A.K. WOJTANOWICZ, A. KUMAR,
C.D. WHITE Louisiana State University

IPTC 11468 (2007) “Fracturing Horizontal Wells to Offset Water Production” M.Y. Soliman,
Loyd East, and James Pyecroft, Halliburton

Martin A. Fernø “Enhanced Oil Recovery in Fractured Reservoirs” Department of Physics and
Technology, University of Bergen Norway

US Patent 3,530,937 “METHOD FOR WATER FLOODING HETEROGENEOUS PETROLEUM

RESERVORS” George G. Bernard, La Mirada, California

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