MODELING OF PRODUCING PRESSURE IN HETEROGENEOUS OIL-BEARING RESERVOIRS

Abstract

Numerical modeling of the distribution of the reservoir pressure drop in the vicinity of an operating well was carried out taking into account the inhomogeneous distribution of filtration characteristics (permeability and oil viscosity) in the near and distant zones of the well operation in order to study the practical aspects of filtration in heterogeneous oil-bearing formations based on a combined finite-element-difference method for non-stationary problem of piezoconductivity. The use of the combined finite-element-difference method enables to combine the advantages of the finite-element method and the finite difference method: to model geometrically complex areas, to find the value at any point of the object under study, while the implicit difference scheme.
 It is shown that the intensity of filtration processes in the vicinity of the operating well depends mainly on the permeability, and, to a lesser extent, on the viscosity of the oil. Moreover, the influence of the permeability of the oil phase in the remote zone (Rd < 5 m) is greater than the effect in the close zone (Rd > 5 m) of the operating well. In the case of low permeability of the oil phase in the vicinity of the existing well, to maintain stable oil production, it is necessary to place an injection well near the production well. Using the method suggested, it is possible to predict the effect of the injection well on the formation pressure distribution in the formation.
 The scientific novelty of the work lies in the study of the influence of the heterogeneous permeability and oil viscosity distribution on the reservoir pressures distribution around the wells by modeling filtration processes based on a combined finite-element-difference method.
 The practical significance of the research results comes down to confirming the close relationship between the heterogeneity of the porous medium and the reservoir pressures distribution around an operating producing well. The combined finite-element-difference method used in this work can be used to solve other filtration problems (for example, to calculate the gas saturation of a reservoir, create a method for calculating well flow rates, assess the effect of injection wells on filtration processes).