Proactive control of cresting in homogeneous oil reservoirs: an experimental study

Abstract

This paper sets out to investigate experimentally the use of electromagnetic valves in controlling production of water during cresting from homogeneous non-fractured thick-oil and thin-oil reservoirs, based on the principle of capillarity and breakthrough time. A time half the initial breakthrough times was preset for the electromagnetic valve to close. The valve closed almost immediately at the set time thereby shutting oil production temporarily, causing the water and gas height levels to recede by gravity and capillarity with receding reservoir pressure. The efficiency of this technique was compared with an uncontrolled simulation case, in terms of cumulative oil, oil recovery and water produced at the same overall production time. From the results obtained, higher percentages in oil produced and water reduction were observed in the cases controlled proactively, with a 3.6% increase in oil produced and water reduction of 10.0% for thick-oil rim reservoirs, whereas only a small increment in oil produced (0.7%) and a lower water reduction of 1.03% were observed for the thin-oil rim reservoirs. Hence, the effectiveness of the cresting control procedure depends on the oil column height of the reservoir.