Improved Heavy Oil Recovery by Drilling Horizontal Wells in Rubiales Field, Colombia

Anaya, A. Florez; Araujo, Ysidro; Rivas, Myriam Elizabeth Uzcategui; Moreno, Wilson Parra; Quinones, Rosa Lavado

doi:10.2118/153581-ms

Cited by 14 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…The reservoir dimensions and well configuration used as the base case for the simulations were taken from the work of Florez et al (2012) and represent a typical well in the Rubiales Field. The well is horizontal with an effective length of 900 ft, reservoir thickness of 63 ft and a lateral drainage distance of 960 ft (perpendicular to the wellbore direction).…”

Section: Simulation Model Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The production mechanism in the Rubiales field is an active water bottom drive from a strong artesian aquifer and in some cases lateral water drive due to presence of shale layers that act as vertical seal (Florez, 2012). The aquifer thickness is in range of several hundred feet, which on average is one order of magnitude larger than the reservoir oil zone thickness (Fig.…”

Section: Aquifer Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Simplified Near Wellbore Reservoir Simulation To Predict the Performance of Viscous Oil Horizontal Well With Water Coning From an Active Aquifer

Juruś

Stanko

Parra

et al. 2015

SPE Latin American and Caribbean Petroleum Engineering Conference

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This paper describes the development of a comprehensive 2D near wellbore reservoir model to history match and predict the not yet fully understood production performance and deliverability of horizontal wells producing a heavy viscous oil (~300 cp). This in the presence of water conning from an active aquifer. The target application is heavy oil reservoirs (e.g. Rubiales field, Colombia) with rapidly increasing or high producing water cut (~90%), constant reservoir pressure maintained by an active aquifer, and high horizontal pay zone permeability (~15 D).The methodology employs a simplified 2D horizontal wellbore reservoir model with enough flexibility (i.e. tuning parameters) to match the measured wells production profile (i.e. water production and producing water cut). One well with full production record was analyzed.The following modeling strategies were tried out: providing an adequate pressure support from the aquifer, increasing artificially the oil mobility in the porous media as the water saturation increases and hindering the vertical water migration from the aquifer towards the well. These modeling strategies added additional tuning variables besides the conventional formation parameters.Model parameters were varied automatically using an optimization engine minimizing the difference between the simulated and the measured data.Several modeling approaches were tried out in the simulator: standalone variation of the oil viscosity, oil viscosity variation with water saturation, oil-water emulsion behavior using inversion point and Richardson model, Fetkovich type numerical aquifer, water injector with constant bottom-hole pressure and tunable injectivity index, initial water saturation variation with depth within oil zone.Almost all the modeling approaches yielded an acceptable history match (Ͻ6%) for water production profiles. The match of the bottomhole pressure is more challenging, as satisfactory residuals are only obtained in certain production periods. It was not possible to reproduce the bottomhole pressure trend considering simple aquifer volumetric expansion and emulsion behavior throughout the entire reservoir domain.The present paper proposes the utilization of a simplified 2D near wellbore reservoir model to successfully represent the performance of viscous oil high water cut producing wells with complex physics. The results show that it is possible to overlook the complexity of such reservoirs by Љwrapping them upЉ in a few macro parameters and still keeping physical consistency.

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Section: Simulation Model Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Aquifer Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simplified Near Wellbore Reservoir Simulation To Predict the Performance of Viscous Oil Horizontal Well With Water Coning From an Active Aquifer

Juruś

Stanko

Parra

et al. 2015

SPE Latin American and Caribbean Petroleum Engineering Conference

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show abstract

Other thermal methods

Asemani¹,

Ranjbar²

2023

Thermal Methods

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Mathematical Modeling of Heat Transfer and Pressure Drops in the Single- and Dual-Pipe Horizontal Wells

Dong

Liu

Chen³

2016

Journal of Thermal Science and Engineering Applications

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In this paper, from the heat transfer mechanisms between perforated horizontal well and formation, the mathematical models for the heat transfer and pressure drops of the horizontal well with different steam injection pipe configurations are developed. All the conventional single-pipe, concentric dual-pipe, and parallel dual-pipe configurations are considered. A correlation is proposed to represent a relationship between the thermophysical properties of the formation and the formation pressure and temperature. Then, using the method of wellbore microcontrol elements and node analysis, the steam injection process in the three different well configurations is numerically investigated. Based on the test data of a parallel dual-pipe horizontal well from an actual oilfield, a steam backflow procedure for the parallel dual-pipe configuration is proposed to confirm the sealed status of a thermal packer. The theoretical investigation plays an important role in the performance evaluation and productivity prediction of horizontal well-based thermal recovery projects. Furthermore, it also sheds some important insights on a steam injection project design with dual-pipe horizontal wells.

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Improved Heavy Oil Recovery by Drilling Horizontal Wells in Rubiales Field, Colombia

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to report the methods used and results of the Rubiales

Cited by 14 publications

References 0 publications

Simplified Near Wellbore Reservoir Simulation To Predict the Performance of Viscous Oil Horizontal Well With Water Coning From an Active Aquifer

Simplified Near Wellbore Reservoir Simulation To Predict the Performance of Viscous Oil Horizontal Well With Water Coning From an Active Aquifer

Other thermal methods

Mathematical Modeling of Heat Transfer and Pressure Drops in the Single- and Dual-Pipe Horizontal Wells

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