Effect of impermeable barrier orientation on bottom water cresting

Akangbou, HN; Burby, ML; Nasr, GG; Babaie, M

Abstract

The use of either a permeable or semi-permeable barriers has been proven to be effective in minimizing cresting effects in oil reservoirs characterized by strong bottom aquifer, with the latter known to be more effective. Most research has been focused on coning control in vertical wells with little research existing for cresting control in horizontal wells, especially in use of barriers.
Therefore, this paper sets out to numerically investigate the effect of an impermeable barrier orientation in an oil reservoir characterized by a strong bottom aquifer. The orientations considered in this study were horizontal and inclined (step-like) in terms of placement in the oil reservoir, modeled with similar thickness and width.
From the results, it was observed that a horizontally-placed impermeable barrier is more effective than inclined impermeable barriers in bottom water cresting scenarios. A horizontal impermeable barrier closer to the perforation of the horizontal well, 0.08x in thickness to the reservoir height and 0.45x to reservoir width was the most effective, although the effect of impermeable barrier width was found to be inconsistent with the performance of impermeable barriers. The study shows that the closer the entire top surface of the inclined impermeable barrier, the more effective the inclined impermeable barrier in minimizing bottom water cresting effect. The value of Reynolds number was found to be dependent on the orientation, thickness, position, and width of an impermeable barrier.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 23, 2017
• Publication Date: Sep 2, 2017
• Deposit Date: Jul 24, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 4, 2017
• Journal: Journal of Engineering Technology
• Print ISSN: 0747-9964
• Publisher: American Society for Engineering Education
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 853-869
• Publisher URL: http://www.joetsite.com/
• Related Public URLs: http://www.joetsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Vol.-62-63-2017.pdf