Geoscience/engineering characterization of the interwell environment in carbonate reservoirs based on outcrop analogs, Permian Basin, West Texas and New Mexico--waterflood performance analysis for the South Cowden Grayburg Reservoir, Ector County, Texas. Final report

Abstract

A reservoir engineering study was conducted of waterflood performance in the South Cowden field, an Upper Permian Grayburg reservoir on the Central Basin Platform in West Texas. The study was undertaken to understand the historically poor waterflood performance, evaluate three techniques for incorporating petrophysical measurements and geological interpretation into heterogeneous reservoir models, and identify issues in heterogeneity modeling and fluid-flow scaleup that require further research. The approach included analysis of relative permeability data, analysis of injection and production data, heterogeneity modeling, and waterflood simulation. The poor South Cowden waterflood recovery is due, in part, to completion of wells in only the top half of the formation. Recompletion of wells through the entire formation is estimated to improve recovery in ten years by 6 percent of the original oil in place in some areas of the field. A direct three-dimensional stochastic approach to heterogeneity modeling produced the best fit to waterflood performance and injectivity, but a more conventional model based on smooth mapping of layer-averaged properties was almost as good. The results reaffirm the importance of large-scale heterogeneities in waterflood modeling but demonstrate only a slight advantage for stochastic modeling at this scale. All the flow simulations required a reduction to the measured whole-core k{sub v}/k{sub h} to explain waterflood behavior, suggesting the presence of barriers to vertical flow not explicitly accounted for in any of the heterogeneity models. They also required modifications to the measured steady-state relative permeabilities, suggesting the importance of small-scale heterogeneities and scaleup. Vertical flow barriers, small-scale heterogeneity modeling, and relative permeability scaleup require additional research for waterflood performance prediction in reservoirs like South Cowden.