A Study of Improving Reservoir Conformance Using Polymer Gels in Producer Wells

ABSTRACT

The possibility of using polymer gels for improved conformance in the treatment of producer wells has been evaluated. A radial computer simulation model was built and used to test a variety of conditions, including water influx occurring in a layered clastic reservoir with and without segregation between layers, simultaneous water and gas coning in a uniform carbonate reservoir, and simultaneous water and gas channeling in a fractured carbonate reservoir. The gel placement was modeled by altering the permeability, or the relative permeability, of the affected blocks according to experimentally determined values. Reverse coning was also evaluated as a counter measure for the case of simultaneous water and gas coning. For the clastic reservoir examined in this work, utilization of polymer gels in producers is favoured when there is segregation between layers and where the gels do not penetrate significantly into the oil layers. It also proved that gels have little value when implemented in a uniform unfractured carbonate reservoir producing under high water/oil ratio. Gel placement extended production well life by significantly reducing water/oil ratios and gas/oil ratios, but cumulative oil production did not increase in proportion to well life. Injection of a plugging agent around the perforations can be detrimental to oil production if the plug is too large. Finally, reverse coning was found to be more effective than gel placement for the case of simultaneous water and gas coning.

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