SPE 87048 How 50 Million Tons Annual Production Has Been Maintained For 27 Years In Daqing Oilfield ----

A Successful Story
Wang Yupu, SPE, Liu He, SPE, Daqing Oilfield Company Limited

Copyright 2004, Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc. This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Asia Pacific Conference on Integrated Modelling for Asset Management held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 29-30 March 2004. This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE Program Committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper, as presented, have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Papers presented at SPE meetings are subject to publication review by Editorial Committees of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper for commercial purposes without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper was presented. Write Librarian, SPE, P.O. Box 833836, Richardson, TX 75083-3836 U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435.

Oil Production Rate(t)

Abstract The paper introduces oil production engineering series for heterogeneous, multilayer sandstone oilfield in the basis of separate zone production in the four development phases including production and stable production. The technologies provide technical means for realizing Three-changes of oilfield development, make an important contribution for keeping stable production of 50 million tons for 27 years in heterogeneous, multilayer sandstone oilfield. The development process and several technologies for different development phase are introduced in the paper. Introduction Daqing Oilfield is the largest oilfield in China. It is a giant, nonmarine, heterogeneous and multilayer sandstone oilfield whose reservoirs can be divided into 80-120 small layers. The reservoirs total thickness ranges from 100 to 150m, and for single layers, the thickness is 0.2 to 30m. The maximum permeability is 1.2 m2 while the minimum is 0.004-0.005 m2, which makes the interval permeability contract between layers up to 60 times. After 42 years development, a set of development theories and technologies have been created for the giant, nonmarine, heterogeneous and mulitilayer sandstone oilfield. Till the end of 2002, the field-wide recovery factor was 47.2%, and in La-Sa-Xing reservoirs, some of the main reservoirs in Daqing, occupied up to 50.4%. And it has been 27 years that Daqing oilfield produced oil stably above 50 million tons (see Fig1.). From the initial increasing the production process to the later stabilizing production process, separate zone injection development theory has been created for resevior enginerring, as well as the separate zone oil production technologes for oil production engineering. In general, there are three changes in the process of Daqing Oilfield development:

(1) The change of development objective from main reservoir to medium-low permeability layer and untabulated layers which are thin and poor. (2) The change of production method from natural flow production to full-scale artificial lift production. (3) The change of driving method from single waterflooding to the co-existance of waterflooding and polymer flooding step by step. After the above treatments, Daqing Oilfields yearly production reached 5,030104tons in 1976 (Daqing Oilfield was found in 1959 and put into prodnction in 1960), and entered into a stable phase of yearly oil production above 5,000104tons. From 1994, the yearly production reached a four-year peak of 5,601104tons. In 1996, the oilfield entered into the full-scale development phase. All the development
Fig1. Yearly Oil Production Rate in Daqing Oilfield
6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 Y ear

methods came into effect including water flooding, polymer flooding and developing peripheral low permeability reservoirs which contributed to keep a stable production of 5,000104 tons till 2002. Separate layer Development Technology According to overall requirement of oilfield development, which aimed at maximizing the producing degree in all kinds of reservoirs, a series of separate layer development technologies were created including separate layer injection, separate layer prodnction separate layer stimulation, and separate layer test. In the initial dissolved gas driving period, the recovery factor was 15%. After separate layer injection, the recovery rose to 30%. And after well infilled and adjustment of injection-production system, it rose to 40%. At present, after polymer flooding, the oilfileds recovery has improved to 50%. As we can see, therere four steps of the recoverys improvement that also divided Daqing oilfields development history into four phases. And in these four

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phases, the adaption of separate layer development technology contributed the most. The first development phase (1960-1975) The problem During the initial production period, the output of oil production came from basic well pattern by natural flowing. The total water cut of the oilfield was under 40%. Calculations and statistics showed that, when reservoir pressure droped to below saturation pressure only about 1 % of the original oil in place (OOIP) would be produced by the dissolved gas driving method. And the recovery factor might only be 15% till the oilfield was depleted. In order to supply the reserviors energy and maintain a long term and high rate production, water injection seemed to be the best choice. But the question is, how to inject water? Initially, commingled water injection was chosen. Coutermeasures In this period, high permeability layers in major reservoirs and the host formation of higher permeability in non-major reservoirs were put into production. Therefore, early internal transverse division waterflooding development project and maintaining formation pressure was adopted. An early requirement of the technology is to realize forced injection in major reservoir. The goal of this phase Overall objective is to inject the water into formation and keep formation pressure, stable production in low water cut period. Applied technologies After the oilfield entering into water injection development phase, flowing productivity is strong, oilfield is in quick production phase. In the mean time, major reservoirs play a role of high productivity, because of serious horizontal and vertical difference, its easy to cause single layer breakthrough and horizontal tonguing, therefore cause early water breakthrough and watered-out. At the time, the requirements to the technology are to realize zonal injection. The technological development is divided into two phases, commingled water injection phase (before 1964) and zonal injection phase (1965-1975). During the two phases, application of separate production technology is as follows: (1) Application of hot washing and hot injection, cold washing and cold injection, gassy water well cleanout etc. technologies. The technologies make water enter into all kinds of oil layers and reach a definite injectivity, ensure to realize early injection. (2) Development and application of commingled enhanced water injection technology realizes quantitative injection and maintain reservoir pressure. (3) Development and application of zonal injection technology controls single layer breakthrough and horizontal tonguing in high permeability oil layer, strengthens water injection of other layers, effective controls rising velocity of water cut in low water cut period;(4) development and application of zonal testing technology creates and forms Six-separate layer and four-clear matching production technology. The technologies solve better the three-contradiction during initial development period. Application results In low water cut initial development period, center area of Sartu reservoir in Daqing realized

commingled injection for three years with only 5% of recovery percent of reserves, 66% of oil well water breakthrough in Row One production well, 10% water cut rising rate, which affects seriously the development results. In 1964, application of fixed zonal distribution technology in the same well obtained a better result with a zonal injection rate from 22.2% to 79.8%, water cut rising rate from 14.8% to 1.81% during low water cut period from 1964 to 1972. The second development phase The problem The first ten-year stable production development phase (1976-1985) is a development phase which main contents are three changes (Oilfield overall water cut rate of 40-70%). The main problems were full waterflood response, oil well breakthrough from multilayer and multidirection, oil and water layers cross distribution, serious interlayer interference, and prominent horizontal contradication. Coutermeasures Ten-year stable production period is divided into two phases: The first developing period (1976-1980) In this period, the main technological policy is that, the less permeability layers in the edges of tge major oil reservoirs and good communication layers in the low and mediun permeability reservoirs are the development tapping potential objectives. The technical countermeasures are based on the original well pattern, without adding additional developing areas, through adopting multistage separate production technology to constitute alow and medium reservoir produeing system separately, realicing continuously stable produetion at the medium water cut stage, Main technological obiective includes that, reservoir pressure is increased 0.1-0.2Mpa every year, rising rate of yearly water cut should be controlled at about 3.5%, overall water cut rate is below 50%,overall production decline rate of old wells is controlled within 3%,maintenance of 5000104 tons stable production rate. The second developing period During 1981-1985,main technological policy is the execution of three changes, which means stimulation changes from the overall adjustment of old wells to well pattern infill subdivision of reservoir first; production method changes from flowing production to fullscale mechanical production; adjustment objective changes from high permeability major layer to medium permeability, on-major layers. Main technological limit is to reduce downhole injection pressure below reservoir fracture pressure; rising rate of water cut is controlled at about 5%, rising rate of yearly overall water cut is below 3.1%;overall decline rate of old wells is controlled within 5%. Using drilling adjustment and subdivision production make medium low oil layer form a separate system to produce. Overall requirements to the technology is to realize separate layer production in major layers and medium, low permeability layer, technical string must reach above 3-4 layers to separate layers, reduce interlayer contradiction between major layers and medium, low permeability layers, ensure stable production rate of mature oilfield. Applied technologies Applied the following separate layer production technologies:

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SPE 87048

(1) Separate layer water plugging technology used to plug high permeability water cut zone in oil wells, alleviating interlayer interference, let the medium and low permeability oil layer play role; (2) The application of multistage, eccentric zonal injection technology increase properly separate injection interval in the same water injection well, adjust downhole oil/water distribution from multilayer and multidirection; (3) The application of the combination of plugging and killing in the same well to adjust horizontally major layers and tap the interval potentials, improving continuously swept volume of water injection, let the high production rate of major layers play role further; (4) The application of separale layer stimulation in injection well and selective fracturing technology in oil well to increase water injection capacity and oil production rate in medium-low permeability layer, improving the degree of recoverable oil, and raising oil production rate; (5) The application of testing and water location technology to provide a basis for analyzing the percentage of recoverable oil of each layer and adopting technical measures; (6) The application of engineering logging technology to check the state of casings in oil/water wells and cement sheath ensures the smooth execution of separate layer production technology. The matching technologies play better alternative role in medium-low permeability layer producing oil. Application results In the medium period of development, because single well zonal increases technical requirements year by year, multistage water distribution and convenient eccentric zonal distribution technologies are developed, which meet further the development requirements of Oilfield. In northern area of Sartu Oilfield, average zonal injection layers for single well increase from 3.46 in 1971 to 5.20 in 1982, still maintaining 5.46 in 1990, which provides a guarantee for producing each layer in the block. The third development phase The problem Its the second ten-year stable production development phase whose main contents are three adjustments (overall water cut rate is 70-80%, initial and medium development phase in high water cut period). At this time, the facing problems are as follows: major layers have been watered out extensively, main body parts have entered into water-washing-oil phase, many layers occur high water cut in the oil well in basic well pattern, production rate declines quickly. Coutermeasure Main technical policies are infill and adjustment of well pattern, development structure adjustment, injection and production system adjustment. Technical target are as follows: by the end of 1995, overall water cut of field wide was controlled within 85%, natural decline rate of oilfield was controlled within 9%, overall decline rate was controlled within 4%, keeping stable production of 5500104 tons. The goal Overall requirements to the technology is to realize subdivision production in thin layers and untabulated layers,

treat many 0.2m thin layers once, ensure to drill about 2000 infill wells and put into production every year, make sure high water cut oilfield continuous stable production. Applied technologies The main technologies The following separate layer production technologies are applied: (1) Zonal injection technology improves the seal rate of packer, adjusts injection profile, improves water absorbing capacity of medium-low permeability pay zone, ensures water injection quality. (2) Zonal injection and testing matching mechanical production technology increases liquid displacement rate; (3) Limited entry fracturing and completion technology improve the results of low permeability, thin oil layer in new drilling, infilling wells, raise a ratio of recoverable oil to OOIP; (4) Zonal ball multi-fracture fracturing technology reforms medium-low permeability oil layer in conventional perforation completion in original well pattern, improving production response and augmented injection results; (5) Zonal water location and plugging matching technology can find out the behavior of zonal production, reduce water production rate of high water cut well, control rising velocity of water cut in the field; (6) Major repair technology for oil and water injection wells makes some water injection restore zonal injection and production, improving utilization rate of oil and water injection wells. These matching technologies solve effective production problem in low permeability, thin and poor oil layer, control rising velocity of water cut in the field. The separate layer water plugging technologies In order to adjust horizontal and interlayer difference of heterogeneous multiplayer, its required to carry out zonal water plugging based zonal water injection. In Daqing Oilfield, mechanical and chemical water plugging technologies are mainly applied. Including as follows: (1) Adjustable zone mechanical plugging technology; (2) Qingning plugging and channeling technology without giving up valuable zone; (3) High polymer single-liquid water plugging technology. Zonal water plugging improves a ratio of recoverable oil to OOIP in medium and low permeability oil layer, helps realize interlayer stable production; enlarges watered-out area in major layer, which is favorable for horizontal adjustment; reduces water production rate, help control rising velocity of water cut. Application results During the medium-high water cut development phase, average single well daily water cut 40m3 with water plugging technology, reduces water cut of 100 104-300 104m3 which is equal to reduce rising velocity of yearly water cut 0.7-1%, reduce about 25% of phase water consumption comparing with design index, thus, reduces injection development cost, controls rising velocity of water cut, extends stable production period of oilfield.

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The fourth development phase The problem The phase is a later stable production development phase whose main contents are waterflooding, polymerflooding and peripheral low permeability coexisting development (overall water cut is over 80%). The faced problems are as follows: with the steep rise of liquid/oil ratio, increamental oil production rate of stimulation drops constantly, yearly incremental oil production rate of old wells with stimulation drops from 220104 tons in the last stage of seventh-five plan to 180 104 tons in the last stage of eighth-five plan; The results of infill wells drops obviously, average daily oil production rate of single well drops from 13.5 tons in the last stage of seventh-five plan to about 9 tons in the last stage of eighth-five plan. Countermeasures Technical policies are to accelerate polymerflooding scale, improve production rate of peripheral oilfield. Technical requirements are as follows: producing II ype of unstabulated layer by waterflooding must produced
Wells

improving ultimate recovery factor; (4) Sealing channeling and plugging technology ensure infill wells normal produce; (5) Injection profile modification technology further taps the potential of low watered-out part of medium thick oil layer in conventional perforation, to improve waterflooding efficiency; (6) Further improvement of restoring technology for casing damage well prevents the casings of oil/water wells from extensive damaging fragment by fragment, improve the rate of restoring and utilization, reduce the effect of casing damage well on separate layer production and development results as possibie. The matching technologies solve the problem untabulated reservoirs are difficult to produce, reduce rising velocity of decline rate. Application results Concentric and integrated water injection technology In the development period of mature oilfield, because of progressive increase of water injection well and the workload of testing and profile modification, the requirement of oilfield subdivision, zonal injection technology based on high effective testing and water modification concentric and integrated etc. are developed with a testing and profile modification efficiency from 5-7 to 2-3 days, struck distance is reduced to 2m.There were 12604 zonal injection wells of 17644 water injection wells in Daqing oilfield in 2002 with a separate injection rate of 71.4%,90.2% of full hole seal rate. For example, Well North 2-21-471 was executed a subdivision operation in Dec.2001, subdivision injection with internal physical interbed controls injection in high water cut part. Sa 114-III3 is subdivided into Sa 114-II7-8 and Sa II10+11,full hole actual injectivity rises from 93m3 to 104m3,limit to inject water into Sa II10+11, strength zone rises from 40m3 to 60m3.Subdivision of the well group obtains a obvious result with daily liquid production of 139tons to 156tons,daily oil production rate of 9tons to 15tons,overall water cut of 93.4% to 89.8%. Separated layer fracturing technology In the light of the requirements of different development phase, 5 series, 14 set of technologies are developed, including limited entry fracturing completion, protection interbed and thin oil layer fracturing technology, temporary blocking agent selective fracturing technology, fracturing technology for peripheral low permeability oilfield, fracturing can improve production velocity of medium-low permeability oil layer, effectively adjusts interlayer difference of no-homogeneous multiplayer. Analysis of testing information of 10 fracturing wells show that average production velocity on high permeability zone drops from prefracturing 1.0t/d.m to post fracturing 1.9t/d.m, average production velocity on non-fracturing zone drops from prefracturing 2.2t/d.m to post fracturing 1.8t/d.m.therefore, we can make the following conclusions: zonal fracturing can adjust extensively production velocity of different permeability zone and reduce the difference; zonal fracturing can improve a ratio of total oil production to OOIP in low permeability ,thin oil layer, further improve the development of infilling wells. In high water cut period, adjustment objectives are the difficult-to-produce reservoir

18000 16000 14000 12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000

Wells

0 96 97 Total injectors 98 99 2000 Zontal injectors 2001 Y ear

Fig3. Zontal injectors since 1996

liquid structure adjustment, control water cut and stabilize oil production rate, subdivision production, waterflooding subdivision degree reaches to reduce the stuck distance of zonal injection to 2m;separate layer fracturing further subdivision, separate layer fracturing restraining barrier is reduced to 2m;polymerflooding must zonal injection with 2-3 layers, ensure stable production of oil filed in the later stage of high water cut. Applied technologies Application of main separate layer oil production technologies in the period is as follows: (1) Effective subdivision zonal injection technology (concentric integrated zonal injection technology). Based on fine geological research, subdivision injection technology makes the stuck distance of separate layer reduce from 8m to 2m,enhance recovery factor. (2) Zonal balance fracturing technology and zonal location fracturing technology which can protect restraining barrier make restraining barrier thickness of fracturing reduce to 0.8m,improve production rate and produced reserves of single well in secondary infilling well. (3) Polymerflooding zonal injection technology makes major layers change from waterflooding to polymerflooding,

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with an air permeability of 0.02-0.05m2, thinnest single layer of 0.2m.More than 1100 adjustment wells were fractured by limited entry fracturing method during 1985-1990 with a daily incremental oil production rate of 13-15t;zonal fracturing technology provides a condition for oilfield stable production. After yearly oil production of Daqing oilfield reached 5000 104 tons since 1976,zonal fracturing technology is popularized and applied extensively, yearly fracturing well is about 2000.By 1995,cumulative incremental oil production rate with fracturing technology has reached to 2382.09104 tons, which covered 60% of contemporaneous technology incremental oil production rate, the tendency was kept continuously in 19962002,making up effectively natural decline of old wells, playing an important role in high production and stable production of oilfield.

Acknowledgments The authors gratefully acknowledge the management of Oil Production Engineering & Research Institute and the partners for their support to finish, implement, and publish this work. In addition we wish to thank partners of No.4 Oil Company for supporting some important data in this paper. References 1 Wang Demin, Tand Jiali: Production Technology of Daqing Oilfield During its High Water-Cut Stage, paper SPE 14847 presented at the SPE 1986 International Meeting of Petroleum Engineering held in Beijing, China March 17-20, 1986. 2 Wang Zhiwu, Zhang: Evaluation of Polymer Flooding in Daqing Oilfield and Analysis of Its Favourable Conditions, paper SPE 17848 presented at the SPE International Meeting on Petroleum Engineering held in Tianjin, People's Republic of China, 1-4 November, 1988. 3 Lin Zhifang, Wang Hemei: Study of Residual Oil Distribution During Line Drive Waterflooding, paper SPE 17825 presented at the SPE International Meeting on Petroleum Engineering held in Tianjin, People's Republic of China, 1-4 November, 1988. 4 Delamaide, Eric, Wang Demin: Daqing Oilfield: The Success of Two Pilots Initiates First Extension of Polymer Injection in a Giant Oilfield, paper SPE 27819 presented at the SPE/DOE Ninth Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.A., 17-20 April 1994.

%
94 92 90 88 86 84 82 80 78 76

96
Sealing

97

98

99

2000

2001

Year
qualified qualified rate rate for treated for whole well zone Fig 3. Injectorss sealing qualified rate in Daqing Oilfield since 1996
Sealing

Conclusions: The paper only introduces the development and application of main technologies, other technologies also play an important role in keeping high production and stable production of oilfield period, such as zonal testing technology, sealing channeling technology, major repair technology, chemical profile modification technology and lift technology etc. 1.According to the features of heterogeneous, multiplayer and the technical requirements of different development phase, oil production engineering technology series based on zonal production for heterogeneous, multilayer sandstone oilfield are formed, which make an important contribution for long period, high efficiency development in Daqing oilfield for 27 years. 2.Zonal production technology is a set of matching technology, which is a basic technical means to keep reservoir pressure, adjusts interlayer and horizontal contradication, control casing damage and rising of water cut, improve recovery factor. 3.Improving ratio of total oil production to OOIP as general objective, centering in improving overall benefit of oilfield development, application of technology forms scale effect, application scale of zonal injection technology is over 10000 wells.

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SPE 87048

Pr oduct i on r at e( 10 t )

400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0

365. 77

Cumulative incremental oil production of presentive year 295. 55 291. 42 289. 08 256. 55 245. 72 242. 56 146. 42 83. 38 96. 32 94. 43

Cumulative incremental oil production of spanning two years

170. 57 118. 61

115. 51

1996

1997

1998

1999 Year

2000

2001

2002

Fig 4. The cumulative incremental oil production by fracturing since 1996

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