Sequential Coupling of Geochemical Reactions With Reservoir Simulations for Waterflood and EOR Studies

Abstract

Summary Many waterflood projects now experience significant amounts of water cut, with more water than hydrocarbon flowing between the injectors and producers. In addition to the impact on water viscosity and density that results from using different injection-water sources during a field's life, water chemistry itself may impact oil recovery, as demonstrated by recent research on low-salinity water-injection schemes. It is also known that water chemistry has a profound impact on various chemical enhanced-oil-recovery (EOR) processes. Moreover, the effectiveness and viability of such EOR schemes is strongly dependent on reservoir-brine and injection-water compositions. In particular, the presence of divalent cations such as Ca+2 and Mg+2 has a significantly adverse effect for chemical EORs. Using new developments in reservoir simulation, this paper outlines a method to couple geochemical reactions in a reservoir simulator in black-oil and compositional modes suitable for large-scale reservoir models for waterflood and EOR studies. The new multicomponent reactive-transport modeling capability considers chemical reactions triggered by injection water and/or injected reactive gases such as CO2 and H2S, including mineral dissolution and precipitation, cation exchange, and surface complexation. For waterflood-performance assessment, the new modeling capability makes possible a more-optimum evaluation of petrophysical logs for well intervals where injection-water invasion is suspected. By modeling transport of individual species in the aqueous phase from injectors to producers, reservoir characterization can also be improved through the use of these natural tracers, provided that the compositions of the actual produced water are used in the history matching. The simulated water compositions in producers can also be used by production chemists to assess scaling and corrosion risks. For CO2 EOR studies, we illustrate chemical changes inside a reservoir and in the produced water before and after CO2 breakthrough, and discuss geochemical monitoring as a potential surveillance tool. Alkaline-flood-induced water chemical changes and calcite precipitation are also presented to illustrate applicability for chemical EOR with the new simulation capability.