Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

History Matching and Performance Prediction of a Polymer Flood Pilot in Heavy Oil Reservoir on Alaska North Slope

Conference · · SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2118/206247-ms· OSTI ID:1827063
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [6]
  1. University of Alaska Fairbanks
  2. Reservoir Experts LLC/Hilcorp Alaska, LLC
  3. University of North Dakota
  4. Hilcorp Alaska, LLC
  5. Oil Search Alaska
  6. DOE-National Energy Technology Laboratory
+ Show Author Affiliations

The first-ever polymer flood pilot to enhance heavy oil recovery on Alaska North Slope (ANS) is ongoing. After more than 2.5 years of polymer injection, significant benefit has been observed from the decrease in water cut from 65% to less than 15% in the project producers. The primary objective of this study is to develop a robust history-matched reservoir simulation model capable of predicting future polymer flood performance. In this work, the reservoir simulation model has been developed based on the geological model and available reservoir and fluid data. In particular, four high transmissibility strips were introduced to connect the injector-producer well pairs, simulating short-circuiting flow behavior that can be explained by viscous fingering and reproducing the water cut history. The strip transmissibilities were manually tuned to improve the history matching results during the waterflooding and polymer flooding periods, respectively. It has been found that higher strip transmissibilities match the sharp water cut increase very well in the waterflooding period. Then the strip transmissibilities need to be reduced with time to match the significant water cut reduction. The viscous fingering effect in the reservoir during waterflooding and the restoration of injection conformance during polymer flooding have been effectively represented. Based on the validated simulation model, numerical simulation tests have been conducted to investigate the oil recovery performance under different development strategies, with consideration for sensitivity to polymer parameter uncertainties. The oil recovery factor with polymer flooding can reach about 39% in 30 years, twice as much as forecasted with continued waterflooding. Besides, the updated reservoir model has been successfully employed to forecast polymer utilization, a valuable parameter to evaluate the pilot test’s economic efficiency. All the investigated development strategies indicate polymer utilization lower than 3.5 lbs/bbl in 30 years, which is economically attractive.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE), Oil & Natural Gas
DOE Contract Number:
FE0031606
OSTI ID:
1827063
Report Number(s):
FE0031606-Xindan-SPE ATCE 2021
Journal Information:
SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Vol. 2021; Conference: SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition; ISSN 2638-6712
Publisher:
OnePetro
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (15)

Rheological Study for Surfactant-Polymer and Novel Alkali-Surfactant-Polymer Solutions conference February 2012
First Ever Polymer Flood Field Pilot - A Game Changer to Enhance the Recovery of Heavy Oils on Alaska’s North Slope conference April 2019
First Ever Polymer Flood Field Pilot to Enhance the Recovery of Heavy Oils on Alaska's North Slope Pushing Ahead One Year Later conference April 2021
History Matching of a Successful Polymer Flood Pilot in the Pelican Lake Heavy Oil Field, Canada conference September 2013
Secondary Polymer Flooding in Extra-Heavy Oil: Gaining Information on Polymer-Oil Relative Permeabilities conference July 2013
Interactions Between Viscous Fingering and Channeling for Unstable Water/Polymer Floods in Heavy Oil Reservoirs conference February 2017
First Ever Polymer Flood Field Pilot to Enhance the Recovery of Heavy Oils on Alaska's North Slope—Polymer Injection Performance conference January 2019
Alaskan Viscous Oil: EOR Opportunity, or Waterflood Sand Control First? conference May 2016
Reservoir Simulation of Polymer Flooding: Challenges and Current Results (Russian) conference October 2020
Potential for Polymer Flooding Reservoirs with Viscous Oils journal August 2010
Unlocking the Value in West Sak Heavy Oil conference November 2005
Viscosity Reduction WAG: An Effective EOR Process for North Slope Viscous Oils conference March 2005
A Dynamic Mesh Approach for Simulation of Immiscible Viscous Fingering conference February 2015
First Ever Polymer Flood Field Pilot to Enhance the Recovery of Heavy Oils on Alaska North Slope – Producer Responses and Operational Lessons Learned conference October 2020
Laboratory Evaluation of Polymer Retention in a Heavy Oil Sand for a Polymer Flooding Application on Alaska's North Slope journal May 2020

Similar Records

Related Subjects