Development and Optimization of Mature Fields through Connectivity Analysis

Abstract

One of the major challenges for field management and decision-making is capturing the geological features of a reservoir. This task is even harder when an extreme heterogeneity of rock fabric and petrophysical properties prevails in the formation. This project presents the evaluation and optimization of the waterflooding process in two mature fields of complex geology in the Gulf of Mexico through the application of the capacitance-resistance model (CRM).The capacitance-resistance model (CRM) develops a semi-analytical expression that can trace the water flow, based on the signal introduced by injection rate variation and the corresponding response in the production rates. This method avoids the necessity for full dynamic simulations and reduced the unknown variables from millions in numerical simulation to hundreds or thousands. The CRM technology has been widely applied to real fields around the world proving to be a successful tool to identify main flow paths and barrier flows. However, a detailed methodology to evaluate the results and overcome the problems associated with data quality and reservoir heterogeneity have not been addressed. Then through the practice on implementing this technology for the two Mexican fields with different characteristics, several of the challenges associated with the connectivity evaluation and waterflooding optimization with real data were evaluated, allowing to develop a comprehensive workflow that can be followed in general practice to use the CRM as a reservoir management tool.