Near well simulations of heavy oil production with ICD completion

Abstract

Heavy oil reservoirs have been proven to be remarkable energy resources due to the high demand in today's oil market. Therefore, increased oil recovery is an essential requirement in fulfilling global energy demand. Oil viscosity is a key factor in determining the rate of production from heavy oil reservoirs. Long horizontal wells are used to obtain maximum reservoir contact. Due to frictional pressure drop along the long well, the driving forces are different from one location to another in the well -this is called the heel-toe effect. In a homogeneous reservoir the oil production rate will be significantly higher in the heel than in the toe, and this will lead to early water or gas breakthrough in the heel. In heterogeneous reservoirs, early breakthrough will occur in the high permeability zones due to low flow resistance in the reservoir. Horizontal wells with passive Inflow Control Devices (ICDs) have shown improved performance in terms of oil production from lateral thin reservoirs. Different types of ICDs are developed to delay the early breakthrough by restricting the flow. The focus area of this paper is the production of heavy oil from a reservoir with water drive and standard nozzle ICD completion. Heavy oil production from a homogeneous reservoir with different viscosities is simulated. Breakthrough time and cumulative oil production is compared. In addition, the effect of ICDs in a heterogeneous reservoir is studied. The results show that standard nozzle ICDs delay the water breakthrough, but are not able to choke the water after breakthrough. The near well simulations are performed with the reservoir model Rocx in combination with OLGA. Tecplot is used to show the flow behaviour in the reservoir.