Waterflood Surveillance Best Practice in a Tight, Heterogeneous, Water-Sensitive, and Massively Fractured Reservoir

Abstract

The T-K is a tight, heterogeneous, water-sensitive, and massively hydraulically fractured sandstone reservoir. Following an aggressive fracturing campaign, the production boost-up led to a dramatic pressure decline. A waterflood project was then prepared and implemented by converting watered-out producers into injectors to increase the reservoir pressure as well as to improve recovery factor. A robust and integrated waterflood management is of utmost importance to ensure the success of T-K challenging waterflood project. Among the various aspects involved, surveillance is considered as the heart of waterflood management. Fortunately, various classical surveillance techniques and performance analysis methodologies are still applicable for this complex reservoir, both for producers and injectors at field and well level. Practical applications of these fit-for-purpose and low-cost techniques are very useful to provide better reservoir characterizations, more accurate performance diagnostics, as well as faster opportunities identifications to improve waterflood performance. The waterflood management of this reservoir, guided by integrated surveillance activities, helps improve the reservoir pressure, increases the production, and enhances the oil recovery. This paper summarizes the best practice in waterflood surveillance and performance analysis in T-K. Various techniques presented can be applied as a benchmark for analyzing the performance of any waterflood project.