Redesign of a Mature Oil Field with More Than 90-Years of Production History: Reservoir Characterization and Modeling of the Cañadon Perdido Field, Argentina
Authors: Llanes J. , Armisen M. , Campos H. , Alimonti L. , Carrizo N. , Juri J. E. 
Published: April 2024

The Cañadón Perdido field is located in Golfo San Jorge basin (Argentina) and has over 90-years production history with 28-years under waterflood. The key to field does not have sufficient data to adequately represent the possible geologic scenarios (special digital well logs). In addition, it has a small number of production and injection wells, many abandoned wells, and stopped wells.

The objective of this case study is to redesign the field development plan for the Cañadón Perdido field through the implementation of tertiary recovery, which allows a rapid reversal the negative economic outcome of this field.

To achieve the objective, available data were collected, including structural and stratigraphic data, geological information and production and injection history. This information was used to create 3D geologic scenarios in which various facies propagation scenarios were developed to best represent the geologic model of the different lateral connectivity between the main reservoirs. Consistency between model-predicted sands and well data was a key factor in the static model scenarios. 3D-numerical simulation techniques were used to adequately characterize the secondary and tertiary recovery processes in the reservoirs. Additionally, due to the imbalance in the reservoir system between injection and production, boundary conditions with dummy wells were incorporated to honor mass balance. To design the EOR Field development plan, we determined the sweet-spot polymer injection areas and the targeting main channels using the in-situ oil tracers where we included them to rank the different injection pattern and area arrangement that would maximize incremental oil production from polymer injection with the least amount of new drilling wells. Different geological models and forecast sensitivities were created for the de-risk and expansion polymer flooding plan into the different areas or clusters groups within the field.

As a result of the methodology applied, a polymer development plan for the Cañadón Perdido field was prepared with a redesign of the field. The different 3D-static models and simulation analyzes allowed us to improve the representation of the geological model and design polymer injection strategies that maximize incremental production with the fewest possible new drilling wells as possible.

The integrated study and the EOR development plan generated have a high impact on the Cañadón Perdido field. The application of tertiary recovery techniques by polymer injection can significantly increase oil production in the field and prolong its useful life. Furthermore, the methodology used in this study can be applied to other fields with similar characteristics, which would contribute to better exploitation of oil resources and more efficient management of mature fields. In the future, the results and learning obtained in this work can serve as a basis for the implementation of tertiary recovery strategies in other old-mature oil fields.