What Can Be Done to Improve Waterflooding
Authors: Peacock Robert A. 
Published: December 2007

This paper was prepared for the 44th Annual California Regional Meeting of the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME, to be held in San Francisco, Calif., April 4–5, 1974. Permission to copy is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words. Illustrations may not be copied. The abstract should contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in the JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or the SOCIETY OF publication in the JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or the SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is usually granted upon request to the Editor PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is usually granted upon request to the Editor of the appropriate journal provided agreement to give proper credit is made.

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Laboratory and field studies have shown that bypassing and channeling injection water from injection to production wells can be precisely controlled by the use of a suspension of micron-sized particles. The percentage of permeability reduction obtained in this way was found to be dependent solely on the initial core permeability and the quantity of suspension used. The suspended particles are capable of high percentage permeability reduction even in very permeable materials. The block produced in this permeable materials. The block produced in this manner is uniform throughout the porous zone treated and cannot be dislodged by either forward or reverse flow of water or brine.

Data obtained from 30 injection and over 100 production wells in two oil fields show that this production wells in two oil fields show that this process does, in fact, divert flood water from old process does, in fact, divert flood water from old channels to the hydrocarbon-bearing regions of the reservoir. This has resulted in decreased WOR and reversal of production decline curves.

Introduction

There can be no doubt that early water breakthrough is detrimental to the economics of a waterflood operation. This is because, after a break-through has occurred, a substantial portion of the injection water tends to follow the water that broke through and it will bypass oil in the hydrocarbon-bearing strata. An overall result is a decrease in the production of oil and an increase in that of water.

A premature water breakthrough may be caused by several factors. Of these the most common are horizontal and vertical variation in reservoir permeability, naturally-occurring and artifically-induced fractures, over-injection of floodwater, and the existence of zones of high water-saturation in the reservoir. A premature water breakthrough may be caused by any of these factors or a combination of them.

In order to prevent, or at least minimize, such premature water breakthroughs, a number of products have been developed for the purpose of products have been developed for the purpose of blocking those portions of the reservoir that preferentially conducts injection water to the producing preferentially conducts injection water to the producing wells.