HEAVY OIL
Steam Injection in Fractured Carbonate Reservoirs
The economic success of the Qarn Alam
project depends on the ability to predict
steam requirements and oil production.
Two key oil-production mechanisms
are heat transport through the fractures
and into the matrix and gas-cap gener-
ation resulting from thermal volatiliza-
tion of the oil. The process mechanisms
involved in thermally assisted gas/oil
gravity drainage (TAGOGD) were vali-
dated through laboratory experiments,
while the field-forecast model results
were validated by history matching
pilot-performance data.
Introduction
The Qarn Alam field was first brought
on production in 1975. When the field
came on stream, the net oil production
peaked at 6000 m3/d, despite the high oil
viscosity. Water breakthrough followed
rapidly, and by 1978, net oil production
declined and remained low thereafter.
During the initial peak in oil production,
the oil contained in the highly permeable
and pervasive network of fractures was
produced and replaced mostly by forma-
tion water. After this period, a rim of oil
remained, separating the newly formed
fracture water/oil contact (WOC) and
the newly formed fracture gas/oil contact
(GOC). Under primary production, the
reservoir produces on average approxi-
mately 100 m3/d of 16API oil, at a
10 m3/m3 gas/oil ratio (GOR).
This article, written by Assistant Tech-
nology Editor Karen Bybee, contains high-
lights of paper SPE 102186, The Physics
of Steam Injection in Fractured Carbonate
Reservoirs: Engineering Development
Options That Minimize Risk, by G.T.
Shahin Jr., SPE, Shell E&P Technology;
R. Moosa, SPE, PDO; and B. Kharusi
and G. Chilek, Shell E&P Technology,
prepared for the 2006 SPE Annual
Technical Conference and Exhibition, San
Antonio, Texas, 2427 September.
For a limited time, the full-length paper is available free to SPE members at www.spe.org/jpt. The paper has not been peer reviewed.
JPT APRIL 2007
The purpose of TAGOGD in Qarn
Alam is to develop additional oil by
increasing the field recovery from 4%
under isothermal gas/oil gravity drain-
age (GOGD) to 27% of original oil in
place. TAGOGD is a novel enhanced-
oil-recovery development concept that
has as yet no full-field analog. Despite
the lack of commercial analogs, sev-
eral field trials have occurred on a pilot
scale. Isothermal GOGD in this vis-
cous (220 cp)-oil reservoir is economi-
cally unattractive because of the low oil
mobility. Reservoir heating by steam
injection significantly lowers the oil vis-
cosity to approximately 2 cp, increases
the gas cap as a result of thermal vapor-
ization of the oil, and increases the
GOGD rate by a factor of approximately
60. This development concept has been
piloted in the Qarn Alam field and was
found to be economically attractive. The
attractiveness of the concept stems from
the fact that the dense fracture spacing
in the reservoir effectively distributes the
steam and is a conduit to collect the oil
in the oil rim. This type of development
requires significantly fewer wells than
an equivalent conventional steamflood.
TAGOGD
TAGOGD refers to the injection of steam
into the crestal portion of the fracture
system. The gravity-stable displace-
ment that occurs in the fracture system
between steam and hydrocarbon, com-
bined with the small pressure gradients
that exist in the fracture system, results
in a situation in which thermal conduc-
tion is the dominating mechanism for
heat transport into the matrix blocks.
Simulations indicate little to no fluid
(steam) exchange occurs between the
matrix and the fracture in the fracture
gas cap until the very late stages of
steam injection. As the matrix blocks
heat up, the matrix GOR increases as
a result of thermal volatilization of the
lighter hydrocarbon components. Once
the critical gas saturation is exceeded,
the highly mobile gas phase immedi-
ately migrates into the fracture system
where it significantly increases the size
of the fracture GOC. While gas liberation
leads to more-viscous crude, viscosity
reduction with temperature dominates
and lowers the viscosity of the oil in
the matrix block. The density differ-
ence between the gas and oil, combined
with the decreased oil viscosity, allows
the less-viscous oil to drain through
the matrix at an accelerated rate, until
it encounters colder, more-viscous oil.
The colder, less-mobile oil acts as a flow
restriction that forces the more-mobile
oil into the gas-filled fracture system,
through which it flows into the oil rim
and is produced.
Modeling
As an aid in identifying the most domi-
nant reservoir-modeling parameters in
GOGD and TAGOGD, thermal core-
stack experiments were performed
using stock-tank Qarn Alam crude oil
and Qarn Alam core. These results,
combined with other laboratory stud-
ies of fracture/matrix systems, were
used to verify the physics in a com-
mercial thermal reservoir simulator.
Using a 100-gridblock single-porosity
model, and a five-gridblock dual-poros-
ity model, a series of simulations was
history matched to the experimental
data to compare the physics in single-
porosity and dual-porosity simulators
to actual experimental results. In going
from the single-porosity fine-grid model
to a dual-permeability coarse-gridblock
model, grid coarsening causes an error
to occur that consistently underpredicts
oil rate. The error occurs because the
actual drainage rate is related to the local
oil saturation at the bottom of the matrix
block, while the simulated drainage rate
is related to the average saturation of the
83
gridblock. When flow barriers or very
severe flow restrictions are added to
the core-stack model, the oil-production
rate in general will be underpredicted
using the standard dual-permeability
formulation unless care is exercised in
choosing the gridding scheme used.
Pilot History Match
To determine a consistent set of fracture
thermal properties, fracture spacings, and
shape factor to be used in the field-devel-
opment dynamic reservoir models, a his-
tory match of Qarn Alam pilot perfor-
mance was necessary. A full-field thermal
reservoir model was constructed using a
commercial thermal reservoir simulator.
The model is a dual-permeability ther-
mal model, with edge-water analytical
thermal aquifers attached. Construction
of the model consisted of geological and
petrophysical input, material-property
input, fracture characterization, and res-
ervoir-engineering validation.
The thermal rock and fluid mate-
rial properties were obtained from stan-
dard literature sources supplemented by
measurements where appropriate. Five
different pressure/volume/temperature
(PVT) sample programs/reports span-
ning 1972 through 2002 were used to
construct a consistent equation-of-state/
PVT model and then generate a three-
pseudocomponent hydrocarbon descrip-
tion (K tables and viscosity dependence
on temperature) for use in the simula-
tions. Fracture scenarios were translated
into fracture-spacing arrays for use in the
simulation. The pilot history match was
not very sensitive to the fracture spacing
because dense well control indicates frac-
ture spacings of 10 m or less exist in the
crestal portion of the project. Simulation
sensitivities indicate that below a fracture
spacing of approximately 10 m, recovery
is not substantially improved, presum-
ably because the matrix conductivity
(not heat transport between fracture and
matrix) becomes the limiting factor.
While 28 wells have been drilled in
the field, three crestal steam injectors
and 8 crestal producers account for the
flowing wells of the pilot. Seven tem-
perature-logging wells and three gradio-
manometer wells constitute the major-
ity of subsurface-data-gathering wells.
Historical oil and water field production
and gradiomanometer pressures were
history matched from 1975 through
June 1996, during isothermal opera-
tions. From this history match, analytical
aquifer and well-productivity parameters
84
were determined and frozen for use in
the steam-pilot history match. A steam-
pilot history match of oil production,
oil saturation from logs and core, and
temperature-logging data was performed
that honored steam-injection rates, pro-
ducing bottomhole pressures (BHPs),
and gradiomanometer pressures.
Development Options
Development options are parameters in
the field and facility that are consciously
decided and controlled. Steam phasing,
steam rate, steam tapering, injector and
producer location and type, producing
BHP, methane injection, and rim-low-
ering stages are some of the primary
development options that were con-
sidered. Of the development options
considered, steam-injection rate and
producing BHP had the largest effect on
project performance.
Steam-injection rates greater than
18,000 tons cold water equivalent
(CWE)/d result in an accelerated oil
rate over a 35-year period, with little
improvement in total oil recovery. As the
steam rate is increased, higher peak oil
rates also are observed. However, at rates
greater than 18,000-tons CWE/d, the oil-
rate profile results in very little additional
recovery. An approximate doubling of
the steam rate (i.e., from 18,000 tons
CWE/d to 35,000 tons CWE/d) results
in less than 2% increase in recovery. The
result of this effect is an economic trad-
eoff between accelerated cash flow and
increased unit technical cost. Conversely,
steam rates of 10,000 tons CWE/d or less
result in lower oil recovery.
The producing BHP has a nonin-
tuitive effect on project economics. The
high permeability in the fracture net-
work makes large pressure gradients
within the gas cap impractical to obtain
with commercial methane- or steam-
injection rates. As a result, the produc-
ing BHP determines the pressure that is
observed in the gas cap after a few years.
Hence, operating the producers with a
higher BHP is equivalent to operating
the gas cap at a higher pressure.
The simulations were run varying the
producing BHP from 2800 to 3200 kPa
during isothermal production and then
setting the producing BHP to 2800 and
3800 kPa during steam injection in 2009.
The increased gas-cap pressure results in
a decrease in aquifer influx. This in turn
results in lower water-production rates.
Over the range of BHPs investigated,
the high fracture-network permeability
results in produced-oil rates being only
slightly affected by producer BHP. The
oil-drainage rate is determined by the
steam-injection rate and not the BHP
of the producers. The gravity-stable
nature of the high-permeability fracture
system means additional water con-
ing occurs as the BHP is increased, for
approximately the same amount of oil
off-take from the rim.
Transition-Well Development
The well development plan calls for
a few slant wells to be drilled in the
crest while oil production continues at
presteam-injection rates. When steam
is injected and the oil rim thickens
downward, gradiomanometer surveys
will be used to track the new location of
the top and bottom of the oil rim. Once
the behavior and location of the oil rim
are known, the off-take point of the pro-
ducing transition wells will be lowered
to accommodate the new rim location.
This procedure can occur in several
stages, until the oil rim has reached its
targeted 360-m average depth. Once
the rim is lowered in this fashion, the
remainder of the horizontal production
wells are drilled at the final rim location.
If the oil rim is not uniform (as observed
in several GOGD analogs), the final
design depth of the producing horizon-
tal wells can be adjusted to accommo-
date varying rim thickness.
Conclusions
The standard dual-permeability reser-
voir formulation was found to model
the results of laboratory GOGD experi-
ments adequately. When flow barri-
ers exist, modeling requires judicious
grid selection to account for gridding
holdup errors accurately. Force bal-
ance and simulation sensitivities dem-
onstrate that the saturation dependence
of gas/oil capillary pressure and rela-
tive permeability has a large effect on
the oil-drainage rate. Accurate PVT
description of the oil is critical.
The full-field dynamic modeling of the
Qarn Alam TAGOGD process requires
integrated thermal modeling, combining
a dual-permeability reservoir descrip-
tion, fracture-spacing maps, thermal
edgewater aquifer, heat loss to cap and
base rock, and a detailed hydrocarbon
PVT description. The proposed transi-
tion-well development concept has a
favorable effect on project economics
because of its ability to manage the risk
of uncertainty in oil-rim location. JPT
JPT APRIL 2007