Simulation of Oil Recovery Through Advanced Wells Using a Transient Fully Coupled Well-Reservoir Model

Abstract

Oil recovery can be enhanced by maximizing the well-reservoir contact using long horizontal wells. One of the main challenges of using such wells is the early breakthrough of unwanted fluids due to the heel-toe effect and heterogeneity along the well. To tackle this problem, advanced wells are widely applied today. The successful design of such wells requires an accurate integrated dynamic model of the well and reservoir. This paper aims at developing appropriate integrated well-reservoir models for achieving optimal long-term oil recovery from advanced well models.In this study, OLGA® which is a dynamic multiphase flow simulator is implicitly coupled to ECLIPSETM which is a dynamic reservoir simulator for developing accurate models to simulate oil production from advanced wells under various production/injection strategies. A realistic heterogeneous light oil reservoir with an advanced horizontal well is used as a case study. Flow Control Devices (FCDs) are the key component of advanced wells and the functionality of the main types of FCDs in improving the oil production, minimizing the cost and carbon footprint is investigated.According to the obtained results, by implementation of FCDs the water breakthrough time is delayed by 180 days and the cumulative water production with ICD, AICD, and AICV completions is reduced by 26.8%, 33.1%, and 49.1%, respectively, compared to the open-hole case. Besides, the results show that linking OLGA and ECLIPSE is a numerically stable and accurate approach for modeling the interaction between the dynamic reservoir and dynamic well behavior for simulation oil recovery from advanced wells.