Presentation by Dr. Alvaro Grijalba , Senior reservoir engineering Advisor, Occidental Petroleum of Qatar, Ltd
الجمعية القطرية لمهندسي البترول
Qatar Society of Petroleum Engineers
qatarsection@spe.org P.O. Box 63279 – Palm Tower B, Suite 4706, West Bay, Doha, Qatar +974 5553 1950 www.spe.org
Rock, Fluid and Flood Characterization for Miscible CO2 Injection in the Seminole Field Residual Oil Zone, Permian Basin
Alvaro Grijalba
Low to moderate remaining oil saturation exists in deeper zones of several Permian Basin oil reservoirs. The Residual Oil Zone (ROZ) in the Seminole San Andres Unit (SSAU) is found below its traditional producing oil-water contact and contains significant (20-40%) immobile oil. ROZ production is not technically or economically feasible through primary or secondary oil recovery mechanisms. However, miscible flooding with carbon dioxide, CO2, has emerged as a viable enhanced oil recovery mechanism with a high potential to mobilize significant portions of this resource. Reliable rock and fluid characterizations are critical to evaluate the CO2 flood potential and an optimum design of CO2 flood strategy.
The critical rock-fluid parameters and processes influencing the feasibility of producing the remaining oil in the ROZ are:
Reliable estimates of Remaining Oil Saturation (ROS) - obtained from pressure core, sponge cores and laboratory waterflood tests at reservoir conditions
Characterization of formation anisotropy and scale-dependency of permeability through whole core analysis and potential formation damage during CO2 flood
Residual oil saturation to miscible CO2 flood (Sorm)– obtained from miscible CO2 flood tests at reservoir conditions using live oil and field observation
Reservoir oil/ CO2 PVT properties – obtained by basic oil PVT tests and oil swelling
Minimum miscibility pressure to CO2 – obtained through slim tube and coreflood laboratory CO2 flow tests
Equation of state compositional fluid characterization to capture key mechanisms of CO2 miscible flooding
Compositional CO2 flood simulation using geocellular models and the above rock and fluid data and models
In this presentation a summary of the approach used for SSAU will be described as well as the results and the conclusions driven by such analyses.
This presentation is an extract of the paper SPE-133089 offered in the 2010 SPE-ATCE held in Florence, Italy. Authored by M. M. Honarpour, N. Nagarajan, A. Grijalba and M. Valle
BIOGRAPHY
Alvaro Grijalba is currently Sr. Reservoir Engineering Advisor for OPQL. He has worked a variety of reservoir engineering and modeling projects in Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, U.S. (Permian Basin, Hugoton gas, Eagle Ford shale), Yemen and currently working Idd El Shargi North Dome field.
Alvaro has published work on geostatisctical inversion of 3D seismic (SPE 63283 and SPE 69485) and also co-authored chapter 14 of the book “Stochastic Modeling and Geostatistics: Principles, Methods, and Case Studies”, Volume II, AAPG Computer Applications in Geology.
In his assignment prior to OPQL, he led the subsurface team in charge of the modeling and simulation of the Seminole San Andres CO2 flood in the Permian.
Alvaro holds a Bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering from Universidad Surcolombiana and Master’s degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Texas at Austin