Performance of Water Injection in Oil Rim Reservoir Recovery Factor

Abstract

This study examines the potential improvements in recovery factors in optimizing oil production from oil rim reservoirs through water injection and without water injection (i.e. primary production) scenarios in the development strategies of the oil rim reservoirs. A generic simulation model developed from ECLIPSE dynamic simulator was used as core representative of oil rim reservoirs to experiment production optimization with and without water injection. Reservoir data of permeability, oil rim thickness, fluid properties, m-factor, aquifer strength and process parameters sampled from the Niger Delta oil field were used and a placket-Burman Design of experiment (DOE) was used to give a central sensitivity results from the simulation runs. Recovery factors were obtained for the two different production scenarios: primary production and production under water injection. Regression analyses were carried out on the experimental results to generate proxy equations for recovery factor for the two production scenarios. It was observed that the use of water injection is irrelevant for oil rims with active water aquifer. However, water injection will increase the ultimate recovery of oil rim reservoirs under weak aquifer.Keywords: Oil rim reservoirs, recovery factor, water injection, primary production, simulation study