Publications

Oil recovery can be significantly reduced by water coning. The most common cause of water coning is a large drawdown in the oil zone where the reservoir has an active bottom aquifer. Water coning reversal is important to ensure efficient oil production. There are several methods to prevent or delay water coning. A conventional method is to produce oil below its critical rate, but this is often too low to be economic. Another method is to establish a Down Hole Water Sink (DWS). DWS has been reported as successfully increasing oil production and controlling water coning problems. In this paper, a DWS design has been applied in a nodal analysis simulation for a dual-string completion. It has also been compare with Inflow Performance Window (IPW). The IPW shows operation top and bottom in-flow rate for oil wells. This paper analysis the application of a DWS completion in an anisotropic reservoir to optimize oil wells and includes simulation results and sensitivities on field data. Using a numerical simulator populated with static and dynamic data, heterogeneity is introduced via permeability barriers between layers and permeability variations laterally near the well. In parallel, anisotropy was added to combine vertical representation of heterogeneous flow paths.