Experimental Investigation on Injection and Production Pattern in Fractured-Vuggy Carbonate Reservoirs

Juan He, Aowei Li, Shanshan Wu, Ruixue Tang, Dongliang Lv, Yongren Li and Xiaobo Li
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Juan He: Key Laboratory of Renewable Energy and Gas Hydrate, Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, CAS, Guangzhou 510640, China
Aowei Li: State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500, China
Shanshan Wu: State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500, China
Ruixue Tang: State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500, China
Dongliang Lv: State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500, China
Yongren Li: State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500, China
Xiaobo Li: Research Institute of Petroleum Engineering and Technology, Northwest Oilfield Company, Sinopec, Urumqi 830011, China

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-24

Abstract: To constitute and adjust the injection and production pattern in fractured-vuggy reservoirs, we extracted twelve fractured-cave structures, fabricated them into physical models with acrylic plates, and performed experiments via these models. The results show that utilizing oil/water gravity segregation sufficiently and forming valid flow channels should be emphasized. Preferentially exploiting the reservoir body containing intermediate-scaled or large-scaled caves, arranging injection wells in fractures or small-scaled caves while placing production wells in large-scaled caves, and separately putting injection wells and production wells in low/high parts of an intermediate-scaled or large-scaled cave, were found to benefit oil/water gravity segregation and thus gain a better water flooding effect in these experiments. Experiments with combined models also figured out that, after adjusting the injection and production pattern, the valid flow channel newly formed must pass through caves containing enough residual oil to improve the water flooding effect and could be obtained by shutting down the old production well while adding a new production well, adding a new production well, or switching the production well into an injection well while adding a new production well. In the actual field, adjusting the well location and altering the flow channel were proposed to conduct together. This study may provide references on the production management of analogous reservoirs.

Keywords: fractured-vuggy reservoirs; physical model; water flooding effect; injection and production pattern; gravity differentiation; flow channel (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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