Author(s)

Ubanozie Julian Obibuike, Anthony Kerunwa, Mathew Chidube Udechukwu, Stanley Toochukwu Ekwueme

Department of Petroleum Engineering, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Nigeria.

There is a need to increase ultimate recovery from petroleum reservoirs. In order to guarantee efficient resource extraction from reservoirs, primary recovery methods cannot be relied on throughout the life of a well. There is a time in the life of a reservoir when the primary energy will not be sufficient to ensure economic recovery. Complete abandonment of the reservoir at this point may not be a sound engineering decision given the huge investments in developing the asset. Secondary recovery methods present potentials for the recovery of the other trapped resources. The choice of the secondary recovery means depends on the reservoir and geologic conditions and should be determined by modeling and simulation. In this work, a simulation study is conducted for Niger Delta Field ABX2 to determine the performance of water-flooding and gas injection in the recovery of the asset after the primary recovery stage. ECLIPSE Blackoil simulator was used for the modeling and simulation. An equal reservoir rectangular grid block was designed for both the waterflooding and water injection comprising a total of 750 grid cells. Water and gas were injected in both cases at an injection rate of 11,000 stb/d and 300,000 scf/d for waterflooding and gas injection respectively. From the results of the simulation, it was realized that waterflooding gave a higher total oil recovery than gas injection. The difference in oil recovery from water-flooding and gas injection amounted to 0.08 MMstb/d. The Field Oil Recovery Efficiency (FOE) for waterflooding and gas injection was 38% and 16% respectively giving a difference of 22%. The waterflooding method was troubled with excessive water cuts due to water breakthroughs. Waterflooding was chosen against gas injection to be applied to Field ABX2 to improve recovery after primary production ceased.

Waterflooding, Gas Injection, Simulation, Recovery Efficiency, Ultimate Recovery

Obibuike, U. , Kerunwa, A. , Udechukwu, M. and Ekwueme, S. (2022) Simulation Studies on Comparative Evaluation of Waterflooding and Gas Injection in Niger Delta Thin-Bed Reservoir. Open Journal of Yangtze Oil and Gas, 7, 65-83. doi: 10.4236/ojogas.2022.71005.