Agile Scalable Distributed Polymer Injection Achieves 23% of Manantiales Behr Oil Production 2 Years; Worldwide Examples of this Game Changer Strategy
Authors: Juri J. E. , Dupuis Guillaume , Pedersen G. , Ruiz A. , Serrano V. , Guillen P. , Schein F. , Ylitch I. , Ojeda N. , Gandi S. , Martino L. , Lucero A. , Perez D. , Vocaturo G. , Rivas Christophe , Massaferro J.L. 
Published: April 2022

Implementing a polymer flooding plan from laboratory studies to expansion and optimization takes around 8 to 12 years. What is the best approach to increase the project return on investment (ROI) and reduce the risk? EOR is facing, more than ever before, the importance and impact of timing. The oil demand is under rapid replacement because the energy transition is being accelerated by the pandemic.

We built our strategy around a distributed polymer injection rather than a centralized infrastructure to massively inject polymer at full-field scale. The distributed polymer injection with modular mobile polymer injection units (PIUs) targets the richest zones/sweet- spots of by-passed oil. In this case, the logistics, the construction of small modular mobile polymer injection units along with a cluster of ten injectors and nineteen to twenty-five producers ensure that the development cost will be below $5/bbl. The distributed polymer injection not only is efficient in kg of polymer per incremental barrel but also rationalizes OPEX. Progressing this scenario is simple and depends mainly on the engineering and construction to move and mount rapidly the PIU from one sweet-spots to the next one.

Our development strategy focused on speed over scale: less use of water, less footprint, less infrastructure, optimize OPEX (polymer is being consumed along four to seven years, there is scope to optimize along the project lifetime) on the contrary infrastructure an upfront cost (there is less scope to optimize in the project lifetime). We prioritize small/mobile facilities knowing the specific location of the best reservoir targets in the subsurface to inject polymer. This offered the opportunity to standardize engineering and materials for mounting the modules, and it provides a way to focusing on one type of infrastructure to optimize.

Grimbeek Field, case study shows how we have increased the return of investment by identifying the sweet-spots of by-passed oil using reservoir simulation. In each of the main sweet-spots, we installed a modular mobile polymer injection unit. Reservoir simulation shows that only 38% of the reservoir affected by polymer injection produces more than 60% of the incremental oil.

Grimbeek Field produced 4100 BOPD in 2019. Development of sweet-spots by modular polymer injection has driven the production of over 9700 BOPD incrementing production in more than 100% (more than 5000 BOPD) which now represents 23% of Manantiales Behr total production in less than two years including 2020. In the next 10 months, the project will have delivered 60% of the total cumulative production rationalizing the operative expenditure.

This strategy is a game-changer in polymer flooding, not only because other companies worldwide are adopting the distributed polymer injection concept but also because companies that initially adopted centralized infrastructure to massively inject polymer are now abandoning this concept and shifting towards distributed polymer injection. This strategy can be implemented efficiently in many mature fields since it will improve efficiency and speed across the whole value chain: 1)construct a small polymer injection units off-site, 2) mount on-site a modular installation, 3) inject polymer in relatively short injection cycles (3 to 4 years rational increase in OPEX) and 4)focus cluster production and move the PIU to the next zone.