Appraising the Performance of Cyclic Production Scheme Through Reservoir Simulation, a Case Study

Abstract

Abstract Oil wells in mature fields usually produce high water rate exceeding 80% water cut. This in turn will increase capital investment for expansion of water handling facilities. Further, high water production may cause adverse effects on the reservoir performance which can result in production losses due to premature water coning and channeling. To mitigate this situation, many strategies have been implemented in order to reduce water production, optimize oil production and revive dead wells and one of which is to do cyclic production scheme (CPS). This strategy enhances the sweep efficiency, pressure maintenance and reduces the water handling cost. CPS is an innovative concept to help mature fields to reduce water production and it requires alternatively shutting and flowing wells with high water cut over a predetermined time. This simulation study assesses the effectiveness and the performance of CPS implemented in a reservoir simulation model of a matured oil field. Simulation runs with several scenarios were conducted to understand and optimize the impact of CPS. The simulation results provided the best cyclic production/shut-in period and showed significant advantages of applying CPS over the regular non-cyclic production in all scenarios. In this study, more than 93 wells have been evaluated and most of these wells showed good overall oil recovery after applying CPS strategy.