Overview of CO2 Injection and WAG Sensitivity in SACROC

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents an overview of the SACROC Unit's activity focusing on different CO2 injection and WAG projects that have made the SACROC Unit one of the most successful CO2 injection projects in the world. The main objective of this work was to review CO2 injection and injection rate losses due to the CO2 /WAG miscible displacement process in the SACROC Unit and recommend an injection strategy for WAG-sensitive patterns. Two types of pattern CO2 /WAG injection rate performance were observed, 1) WAG-sensitive and 2) WAG insensitive. WAG-sensitive patterns displayed loss of CO2 injectivity, exceeding 80% in some patterns, during water-alternating-gas (WAG) injection, and an apparent reduction in water injectivity during the follow-up brine injection. This injectivity loss was observed in over 150 injection patterns. Over time, CO2 injectivity tended to return to prior-to-WAG values. WAG-insensitive patterns suffer from these injectivity losses and were characterized by differences in 1) injectivity profiles, 2) Dykstra-Parsons coefficients, and 3) injectivity indexes. In the majority of WAG-sensitive patterns, injectivity profiles redistributed after CO2 injection, while WAG-insensitive patterns did not show a significant change in their injectivity profiles over time. In a limited data set, the mean Dykstra-Parsons coefficient calculated for WAG-sensitive patterns was 0.83, while for WAG-insensitive patterns the mean Dykstra-Parsons coefficient was 0.76. However it was observed that in the lower Dykstra-Parsons patterns (WAG-insensitive patterns) much larger injectivity indexes were also observed; 19.5 bbl/day/psi, compared to 8.5 bbl/day/psi for higher Dykstra-Parsons patterns. This suggests that the WAG-insensitive patterns were dominated by fracture flow rather than matrix flow. These observations indicate that the WAG injection process in these heterogeneous SACROC wells is successful in diverting the injected fluids from zones with higher permeability to zones with lower permeability. For wells with injectivity values of less than 10 bbl/day/psi it is recommended to begin CO2 /WAG injection with a long CO2 cycle since they are likely to show sensitivity to WAG. A simulated 5-spot pattern was used to study the injection schedule for WAG-sensitive patterns. Longer CO2 cycles and shorter water cycles improved the injectivity and pattern production. Most importantly, it was observed that increasing producing BHP to MMP resulted in significantly lower GOR.