Upscaling Results from Optimum Salinity Waterflooding at the Core Scale to a 3D Dynamic Grid

Abstract

In order to fully quantify the volumes in place, capture the dynamics of fluid flow, production forecast and consequently economic potentials of oil and gas reservoirs, 3-dimensional (3D) models filled with relevant rock, fluid parameters and well information are built. This work carried out Optimum Salinity core flooding (OPTSWF) with progressive dilution of the invading brine at the laboratory scale. Next, the relative permeability curves for oil and water for the initial and final salinity conditions were obtained using Corey’s estimation. These curves were then loaded into a 3D dynamic model and the model was run under different salinity conditions to quantify the incremental oil recovery from Optimum Salinity Waterflooding and to visualize the process in 2D. Interestingly, the impact of optimizing the salinity was visibly seen in the 3D grid results and helped to visually explain the observed additional recovery from the OPSWF experiment.

Keywords

• Core Flooding
• Optimum Salinity Water Flooding
• 3D Reservoir Model
• Low Salinity Waterflooding
• Corey
• Improved Oil Recovery

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