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Abstract

Induced or natural fractures in waterflooded reservoirs can have a negative impact on oil recovery. Direct connections between injectors and producers allows otherwise recoverable oil to be bypassed by the injected water, reducing the sweep efficiency and the pressure support to the reservoir. Knowledge about the number of connections, their location and size is essential to properly design a reliable conformance treatment. The Danish Technological Institute has together with Maersk Oil developed a deuterium based tracer technology which can provide information about high conductivity fractures in tight reservoirs. The method has been proven on several studies in the North Sea and allows quick and direct analysis offshore. Immediate actions based on real time results offshore can be taken and minimum response time is needed for planning further operations. The tracer used is deuterium oxide which is safe to handle and brings no environmental issues, as it is already naturally present in water. It is completely miscible with water and does not dissolve in the oil phase. The returns are analyzed directly from the produced water stream after separation using a mass spectrometer. This portable equipment allows a quick and reliable analysis with minimal sample preparation. The concentration of tracer is analyzed to give information such has breakthrough time, concentration profile and volume of tracer returned. This data is then used to determine the number of fractures, their conductivity and their relative position in the wellbore using an injector-fracture-producer model.

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/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609-pdb.293.F011
2012-06-04
2024-03-28
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http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609-pdb.293.F011
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