Proactive control of cresting in homogeneous oil reservoirs : an experimental study

Akangbou, HN; Burby, ML; Nasr, GG

Abstract

This paper sets out to experimentally investigate the use of electromagnetic valve in controlling
production of water during cresting from homogeneous non-fractured thick and thin-oil reservoirs,
based on the principle of capillarity and breakthrough time. A time, half the initial breakthrough
times were pre-set for the electromagnetic valve to close. The valve closed almost immediately at
the set-time thereby shutting oil production temporarily, causing the water and gas height levels to
recede by gravity and capillarity with receding reservoir pressure. The efficiency of this technique
was compared with an uncontrolled simulation case, in terms of cumulative oil, oil recovery and
water produced at the same overall production time.
From the results obtained, higher percentages in oil produced and water reduction were observed
in the cases controlled proactively, with a 3.56% increase in oil produced and water reduction of
9.96% for thick-oil rim reservoirs whereas little increment in oil produced (0.7%) and lower water
reduction of 1.03% were observed for the thin-oil rim reservoirs. Hence, the effectiveness of the
cresting control procedure depends on the oil column height of the reservoir.

Citation

Akangbou, H., Burby, M., & Nasr, G. (2017). Proactive control of cresting in homogeneous oil reservoirs : an experimental study. Petroleum Science, 14(4), 755-764. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12182-017-0167-0

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 12, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jun 28, 2017
• Publication Date: Jun 28, 2017
• Deposit Date: Apr 20, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 29, 2017
• Journal: Petroleum Science
• Print ISSN: 1672-5107
• Electronic ISSN: 1995-8226
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Volume: 14
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 755-764
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12182-017-0167-0
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12182-017-0167-0
• Related Public URLs: https://link.springer.com/journal/12182