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How Does Water Injection Work

Water injection, also known as waterflooding, is a secondary enhanced oil recovery process that involves injecting water into oil reservoirs to increase oil production. By injecting water, pressure within the reservoir is increased which helps push remaining oil towards production wells. Various patterns are used for drilling water injection wells, such as the five-spot pattern where four injection wells surround a central production well. Water injection can recover between 5-50% of remaining oil in the reservoir, greatly enhancing oil recovery beyond primary production methods.

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110 views

How Does Water Injection Work

Water injection, also known as waterflooding, is a secondary enhanced oil recovery process that involves injecting water into oil reservoirs to increase oil production. By injecting water, pressure within the reservoir is increased which helps push remaining oil towards production wells. Various patterns are used for drilling water injection wells, such as the five-spot pattern where four injection wells surround a central production well. Water injection can recover between 5-50% of remaining oil in the reservoir, greatly enhancing oil recovery beyond primary production methods.

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Cris Tina
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How Does Water Injection Work?

While primary production refers to oil that is recovered naturally from a producing
well, Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) improves the amount of oil recovered from a well
by using some form of additional engineering technique. Water injection, also known
as waterflood, is a form of this secondary EOR production process.

Baobab Subsea Production System


Used in onshore and offshore developments, water injection involves drilling injection
wells into a reservoir and introducing water into that reservoir to encourage oil
production. While the injected water helps to increase depleted pressure within the
reservoir, it also helps to move the oil in place.

Whether water injection occurs after production has already been depleted or before
production from the reservoir has been drained, waterflood sweeps remaining oil
through the reservoir to production wells, where it can be recovered.

Water Injection Methods


The water used for water injection is usually some sort of brine, but it can also be
made up of other sources that are treated. For example, in some reservoirs water is
produced with the hydrocarbons, removed from the production and re-injected into
the formation.
Enhanced Oil RecoverySource: Schlumberger
It is important that the water being injected works within the formation. Filtration and
processing of the water that will be injected are sometimes necessary to ensure that
no materials clog the well pores and that bacteria is not permitted to grow. In an effort
to reduce any corrosion within the reservoir, oxygen is often removed from the water,
as well.

While production wells can be converted into injection wells, water-injection wells are
also drilled specifically for this purpose. Water is then pumped into the reservoir, or
gravity can help to push the liquid into the formation. This solution positions water
tanks on hills or somewhere above the well, and the water simply is fed into the
wellbore.

There are a number of techniques for determining where the water-injection wells
should be drilled, as well as established patterns for water-injection wells in relation
to production wells. One popular pattern, called the five-spot pattern, involves drilling
four water-injection wells in a square around a production well. This is repeated
around each production well on the reservoir, resulting in four production wells
surrounding each water-injection well, as well.

Other drilling techniques include the seven-spot pattern, which has six water-injection
wells surrounding a production well, and the inverted seven-spot pattern, which
describes six production wells surrounding one water-injection well.

Also, wells can be drilled in line patterns, rather than spot patterns, where a direct
line or staggered line of production wells is followed by a similar line of water-
injection wells, and so on. In an edge waterflood, water-injection wells are drilled
along the outside borders of the field, and water is injected, with production flowing
toward the production wells in the center of the reservoir.

Improved Oil Recovery


Primary production usually only recovers some 30 to 35% of the oil in place.
Although the effectiveness of water injection varies according to the formation
characteristics, a waterflood can recover anywhere from 5% to 50% of the oil that is
remaining in the reservoir, greatly enhancing the productivity and economics of the
development.
WaterfloodingSource: Perisai Petroleum Teknology
This form of EOR is typically more productive when there are relatively small
amounts of primary production, and the process becomes uneconomical when the
water cut reaches the 90 to 99% level. Some waterfloods may take up to two years of
injection before production is increased; and some reservoirs do not have the right
characteristics, and water injection is not a viable option for increasing production
from waning wells. (For example, water injection is never used on natural gas wells.)

Another form of water injection involves introducing heated water into the reservoir.
This helps to make the oil more fluid, especially in reservoirs that contain heavy oil.
Also, the water can be treated with polymers to increase the viscosity of the water
and help to encourage oil movement within the reservoir.

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