A Successful Peripheral Water Flood in a Thin Pennsylvanian Reservoir

Abstract

Abstract The Northeast Jones area of Oklahoma was discovered in 1945. Production peaked in 1948 and the area was almost depleted by 1950. Primary recovery was an economic failure and the field was almost abandoned without a trial of secondary recovery. There were several reasons for the pessimism regarding water flooding, but the most predominant was the old "rule of thumb" that secondary recovery would be the same as primary recovery. The Northeast Jones Cleveland sand unit was formed in 1952, however, with the promotion of an outside group of operators. The water flood proved to be very successful and lucrative, recovering over twice as much waterflood oil as primary oil. Peripheral injection was employed which eliminated the need to drill new wells and, in retrospect, made the project much more successful than would have a pattern water flood. The geometry of the water flood, the uniformity of the formation, and the high oil saturation are believed to be the major contributing factors to the high waterflood recovery and efficiency. Only 3.1 bbl of effective water injection were required for each barrel of oil recovered. Introduction Often, in engineering a prospective water flood, it is found that neither the data nor the applicable calculation methods are completely adequate. To some extent, previous experience is applied in these cases and comparisons are made to known field case histories. When the fields are, in fact, comparable, the predictions are valid. However, many times comparisons or rules of thumb are not valid and the results can be very expensive. In the case of the Northeast Jones, some operators had condemned water flooding because of poor primary recovery, using the old "rule of thumb" that waterflood recovery would approximate primary recovery. The area came close to being abandoned without secondary recovery, but a unit was finally formed and water flooding was very successful. Undoubtedly, if present waterflooding experience had been available at the time of decision on the Northeast Jones, there would not have been much doubt regarding water flooding. The value of case histories, then, is in providing an ample range of experiences so that valid comparisons can be made by the engineer for the purpose of prediction. This paper presents an analysis of the history, planning and performance of the Northeast Jones water flood. Reservoir Development and Characteristics The Jones Field, shown in Fig. 1, is composed of the Northeast Jones and West Jones areas. Each of these areas was originally considered as a separate field but production performance showed that they should be considered as one. The two areas are in communication but are partially separated by a permeability pinch-out in Section 27.The Cleveland sand reservoir is a stratigraphic trap of Pennsylvanian marine deposition. The reservoir is 4,600 ft deep and its producing thickness varies from 4 to 9 ft, averaging 6.5 ft. JPT P. 1238ˆ