Waterflood Design and

Operational Best Practices

Scot Buell, SPEC

Society of Petroleum Engineers

Distinguished Lecturer Program
www.spe.org/dl
1
Outline
• Waterflood design life and injection efficiency
• Conformance management
• Injection well design
• Waterflood surveillance
• Water quality
• Fracturing and subsurface integrity
• Interdisciplinary aspects of waterflooding

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 Waterflooding: The
Gateway to Enhanced Oil
Recovery
Oil Recovery
100%

% Recovery of Oil in Place

80%

Enhanced Oil
60% Recovery

40% Secondary
(waterflood)
20%
Primary

Time
Source: SPE 84908, Stosur et al

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Waterflood Mobility Ratio
Mwf = µo krw/µw kro

Mwf > 1 is unfavorable – water is

more mobile than oil
Mwf < 1 is favorable – oil is more
mobile than water
µo = oil viscosity
µw = water viscosity
kro = relative permeability to oil
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krw = relative permeability to water
What is the Design Life of Your
Waterflood?
Design Life affected by:
•Mobility ratio
•Pore volumes injected
per year
•Injection efficiency
•Water quality
•Permeability
•Well spacing
•Onshore versus
offshore

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 Case History: Pore Volumes Injected
for Four Offshore Reservoirs
• Processing rates (PVI/yr)
very different among
fields
• Same stratigraphic unit,
fluid properties, structure
& trapping mechanism for
all fields
• Unfavorable mobility ratio
for all fields
• Communication between
fields via a regional
aquifer
• Start of primary
production and water
injection varies for each
reservoir

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 How Efficiently Is Your Water
Injection Displacing Oil?
• Technique is based
upon net accumulated water

in the reservoir
• Projects with good injection
confinement will be close to
100% efficiency (actual = theoretical)
• Injection efficiency impacts
overall water requirements
and facility life
• Field example to right lacks
confinement and has ~75%
efficiency
Reference: Staggs, SPE SW Petroleum Short Course, 1980 7
Voidage Replacement Ratio (VRR)

• Also known as FIFO (fluid-in fluid-out) or IWR

(injection-withdrawal ratio)
• Provides accounting of reservoir barrels into and
out of the reservoir
• Waterfloods should have a target, minimum, &
maximum reservoir pressures
• VRR is used as a leading indicator to achieve
target reservoir pressure (particularly when wells are not equipped
with bottom hole pressure gauges)

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Typical VRR Values After Fill-up

VRR 1.1 to 1.4 VRR 1.0 to 1.1 VRR 1.0 to 1.2

Do you understand your VRR requirement

for your target reservoir pressure? 9
Importance of Voidage Replacement
Ratio Management
Gas (mdf/day) & Oil (BOPD)

ES

Water Injection (BWPD)

P’ s
Ac
ce Insta
De lerat lled
cli ed
ne

Consistent VRR
VRR
Decrease

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Classic Waterflood Conformance Problem
in a Layered Reservoir

Injector Producer

Zone 1

Zone 2

o i r Zone 3
erv
l R es
Oi

Water
Displacement
11
Front
Management of Layered
Waterflood Response
% Flow Current % Current
% Original Capacity Pore Volumes Water-Oil
Flow Unit Oil In Place (md-ft) Injected Ratio
Zone 1 25% 30% 36% 2
Zone 2 15% 50% 100% 20
Zone 3 60% 20% 10% Dry
Total 100% 100% 30% 2.1

Always start with the injector if possible. Need surveillance and

injector completions that enable injection profile
management.
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Injector Completions for Conformance
Control
Dedicated Packers & Injection Smart Injector
Limited Entry Tubingless Dual String Mandrels with Packers
Perforating Slimhole Injection with Chokes & ICV’s

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Elements of a Waterflood
Surveillance Plan
Required Routine Surveillance :
•Production testing
•Injection measurement
•Water quality
•Surface & bottomhole pressures
•Production and injection logging
•Well mechanical integrity

Non-Routine Surveillance:
•Pressure transient analysis
•Seismic
•Saturation logs
•Openhole logs in new wells
•Interwell tracers
•PVT Sampling
•Formation testing in new wells
•Routine & special core analysis
•Extended leakoff test (XLOT) 14
Emerging Technology: Fiber Optic Distributed
Acoustic Sensing (DAS) for Injection Flow Profiling

 Fiber optic distributed

temperature sensing
(DTS) is established
technology for flow
profiling.
 DTS flow profiling has
limitations when
temperature differentials
are small in Hz wells.
 DAS flow profiling
algorithms are improving
rapidly.
 Consider equipping
injectors and producers
with capillary tubes for
fiber optic flow profiling. Source: SPE 179377, Irvine-Fortescue, et al
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Cross-functional Waterflood
Management
Waterflood Scorecards Hierarchy of Analysis

It takes more than just reservoir & production engineers

to have a successful waterflood 16
Typical Water Quality
Specifications
Parameter Typical
Specifications
Total Suspended Solids < 2 ppm
Dissolved Oxygen < 10 ppb
Sulfate Content < 2 to 40 ppm
Chlorine residual 0.3 – 1.0 ppm
Sessile Sulfate Reducing < 100/cm2
Bacteria
Planktonic sulfate <100/mL
reducing bacteria
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Reference: NACE 5962 Eggum et al 2015, IJAETCS Abdulaziz 2014, & SPE 98096 Jordan et al 2008
Offshore Water Injection Plant Scorecard

Months with
no Chlorination?

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Biofouling: Consequences of Not
Meeting Water Quality Specifications?
MIC Corrosion Example
What are Biofilms?
They are collections of microorganisms and
the extracellular polymers they secrete.
They attach to either inert or living
substrates. These bacteria are classified as
planktonic (free floating) or sessile
(anchored).

Microbiologically Induced
Corrosion (MIC): Bacteria produce
waste products like CO2, H2S, and organic
acids that corrode the pipes by increasing
the toxicity of the flowing fluid in the
pipeline. The microbes tend to form colonies
in a hospitable environment and accelerate
corrosion under the colony.

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Under Deposit Corrosion: Consequences of Not
Meeting Water Quality Specifications?
 A common corrosion
mechanism in water
injection systems with Pipeline Under Deposit Corrosion
biofouling or solids
accumulation.
 The deposit creates “cell
corrosion,” which is typically
very aggressive and
localized.
 Deep penetration of steel
can occur rapidly under
deposit
Reference: NACE 11266, 2011 20
Oxygen: Consequences of Not Meeting
Water Quality Specifications?
Oxygen Corrosion Examples
 Bare carbon steel can
provide long-term
waterflood service in the
absence of oxygen
 Oxygen is a strong oxidant
and reacts with metal very
quickly.
 Oxygen magnifies the
corrosive effects of the acid
gases H2S and CO2.
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 Water Injection Plant (WIP)
Operations
• Are your water injection plant
operations lower priority
relative to oil & gas plant
operations?
• Operations staff in a difficult
position: Do they meet a water
volume target or a water quality
specification?
• Cross functional discussion is
required to make the best
decision for overall waterflood
management.
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Operational Discipline with
Water Quality
Corrosion Byproducts: Oily Iron Sulphide and
• Do you have a water Iron Oxide in an Injector

quality specification or a
water quality suggestion?
• Do you have quality
criteria for stopping water
injection?
• The negative impacts of off-
spec water are not reversed day
t e r t o
with pigging, acidizing, e c w a by
s p ct e d
chemical shock treatments, Off- c or r e
or r ow .
no t t o m
surface piping replacement, is ater
p ec w
on - s
etc.
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 Matrix Injection Myth in
Waterfloods
• Long term matrix injection cannot
be achieved with practical water
quality levels in sandstone reservoirs.
• Some near wellbore fracturing will occur in
most injectors due to thermal stress & plugging
effects.
• Injection pressures, rates and water quality can
be used to manage fracture geometry.
• Vuggy, fractured carbonates can be an
exception
See SPE 28082, 28488, 39698, 59354,84289,95021, 95726, 102467, 107866,165138, et al 24
Subsurface Integrity
Management for Waterfloods
• Subsurface integrity management ensures injected fluids
are confined to targeted and permitted reservoirs.
• Industry events with injection water breaching seabed or
earth’s surface
• Increasing societal and governmental concerns
• Historical focus has been on understanding reservoir
fracturing and not the overburden and caprock.
• Keeping injection pressures below caprock fracture
pressures does not guarantee containment –
geomechanical modeling may be required.

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Key Takeaways
• Understand the design life and processing rate of your reservoir
(PVI/yr)
• Understand how much of your water injection is effective
• Plan for early water breakthrough and layered reservoir
management
• Understand surveillance minimums and emerging fiber optic
technologies
• Use operational discipline with your water quality – have criteria
for stopping injection – know your water chemistry
• Plan for injector fracturing and subsurface integrity
management
• Use a crossfunctional/interdisciplinary team effort
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Society of Petroleum
Engineers
Distinguished Lecturer
27
Program
www.spe.org/dl