The Effect of Relative Permeability and Residual Oil Saturation

on STT-Oil Well Recovery

Yasir Daud Yusuf, Qisrah Putra Hasbi, Irfan Saputra Pratama, Ardani Ariyanto, Jassen
Peleh, Miftahul Ilmi, Ronaldo Rudy, Ahmad Firmansyah, M. Fahreza Hayoran, Abdul Halim,
M. Fadel W.

Abstract
The production rate especially oil reservoir will be decline with a time. The
recovery factor and lifetime of well itself are affected by the reservoir rock
and fluid properties. Its consist permeability, saturation of water and oil.
This research is done to investigate the influence and effect of the relative
permeability and residual oil saturations on oil well recovery factor.
Simulations using MBAL software are done for different relative
permeability curves and various residual oil saturations. The sensitivity
analysis will be run with different value of relative permeability. The
relative permeability is impact much higher than the residual oil
saturation in petroleum processing.
Keywords: reservoir oil, rock and fluid reservoir properties, relative
permeability.

Introduction
The technology development in oil and
gas industry are continuously looking
for new technologies to enhance oil
recover and optimize the operation.
The main challenge in the industry are
low oil recovery factor, depletion of oil
production, gas coning and water
coning. Some previous works have
shown that considerable amount of oil
still remain in the reservoir after well
shutdown. The residual oil saturation
and early breakthrough are the main
reasons for remaining oil volumes in
abandon oil fields. Since the reservoir
properties highly influence the oil
recovery process, it is interesting to
identify the relation between the
recovery factor and the reservoir
properties.
Further,
the
relative
permeability varies with time due to
changing in water saturation during
the recovery process. If relationships
and variations are known, then
recovery can be efficiently upgraded
by manipulating reservoir properties.

Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) methods

can be used to change the properties
such as relative permeability and
residual oil saturation. A typical oil
reservoir consists of an underlying
aquifer and a gas cap. Here in this
paper, heavy oil reservoirs are
considered and gas coning is not
discussed. Heavy
oil reservoirs occupy more than two
third of global oil reserves.
The oil recovery factor is the ratio
between the amount of oil that can be
extracted from a reservoir throughout
the lifespan of the well and the total
reservoir oil in place. The recovery
factor is in general less than 20
percent when heavy oil is produced
without any external force (P. Zitha,
2011).The conical water profile of the
reservoir, which forms above the
aquifer during the extraction process,
is known as water cone. The water
coning phenomena occurs in oil
wells with aquifer as shown in Figure 1.
The cone spreads towards the well
while the amount of oil is being

reduced in the reservoir over the life

span of the well. When the water cone
hits the wellbore, water
mixes with oil and the inflow to the
well becomes multiphase flow.
The purpose of the study is to
build an MBAL model for a typical STT
oil production process to investigate
the influence of relative permeability
through out the operation. Various
reservoir models can be used to
simulate the characteristics of the
reservoir over the period. The model is
able to predict the behavior of inflow
and the property changes in the
reservoir during the normal operation.
Only horizontal wells are modelled in
this project due to the fact that
horizontal wells are the most common
technology
implemented
in
STT
offshore fields. The MBAL is used as
the result visualization tool to plot the
simulated reservoir results.

2 Reservoir Properties
Each and every petroleum
reservoir
has
its
own
characteristics throughout the
reservoir
volume.
These
properties are distinguished as
rock
properties
and
fluid
properties.
Porosity,
permeability
and
relative
permeability are the most
critical
rock
properties.
Pressure,
temperature,
viscosity, specific gravity, oil
and gas concentrations are
some key fluid properties for
the analysis. Conventionally,
crude oil is brownish green or
black in color with the specific
gravity
0.8010.985.
The
distillation process decomposes
crude
oil
into
its
subcomponents
within
the
boiling point range from 200C to
3500C (Speight Speight, 2009).
2.1 Porosity and Permeability
The porosity of a rock is a
measure of the storage capacity
(pore volume) that is capable of
holding fluids. Quantitatively, the
porosity is the ratio of the pore
volume to the total volume (bulk
volume).
This
important
rock

property
is
determined
mathematically by the following
generalized relationship:

eff =

Interconnected Pore Volume

Bulk Volume

The effective porosity is the

value that is used in all reservoir
engineering calculations because it
represents the interconnected pore
space that contains the recoverable
hydrocarbon fluids. Porosity may be
classified according to the mode of
origin as originally induced.
The
original
porosity
is
that
developed in the deposition of the
material, while induced porosity is
that developed by some geological
process subsequent to deposition of
the rock. The intergranular porosity
of
sandstones
and
the
intercrystalline and oolitic porosity of
some limestones typify original
porosity. Induced porosity is typified
by fracture development as found in
shales and limestones and by the
slugs or solution cavities commonly
found in limestones. Rocks having
original porosity are more uniform in
their characteristics than those rocks
in which a large part of the porosity
is included. For direct quantitative
measurement of porosity, reliance
must be placed on formation
samples obtained by coring. Since
effective porosity is the porosity
value of interest to the petroleum
engineer, particular attention should
be paid to the methods used to In
general, the reservoir volumes consist
of sandstone which is considered as
high porous and high permeable
media. Porosity is a measurement of
the void spaces in a rock. Relationship
for porosity is expressed
as the
volume fraction given in

PROPERTY

2.2 Relative Permeability

The relative permeability is defined for
multiphase
flows.
The
effective
permeability of a component of the
multi-phase flow is given by the
relative permeability.

Pb
2200 psig
GOR
500 scf/stb
FVF
1.32 rb/stb
viscosity
0.4 cp
oil gravity
39 API
gas gravity
0.798
salinity
100000 ppm
Pi
4000
porosity
0.23
saturation
0.15
OIIP
210.867
Start of Production
1/1/2001
reservoir thickness
250 feet
reservoir radius
2500 feet
Outer/Inner radius
ratio
5
Encroachment
Angle
180 derajat
Aquifer
Permeability
10 md
For this project, we use three
different relative permeability model.
For the first case, the relative permeability
value :
Krw
Kro
Krg

3. Modelling and Simulation

Models are built based on the
properties found in STT Reservoir is
situated about 40 km north of Comilla
town. Its location is in Eastern part of
Bangladesh between 2339 N and 2342 N
Latitude and 9110 E and 9112 E
Longitude. It is located in the central part
of the Rukhia Anticline. Even though,
homogeneous reservoirs do not exist in
real world, adequate parameters are used
in simulation to evaluate real world
challenges.
Reservoir properties in STT field

VALUE

Sirr
End Point Exponent
0.15
0.63
0.84
0.15
0.8
1.5478
0.2
0.9
1

For the second

case, the relative
permeability value :
Sirr
End Point Exponent
Krw
0.15
0.9
0.84
Kro
0.4
1
1.5478
Krg
0.2
0.9
1
For the thrid
case, the relative
permeability value :
Sirr
End Point Exponent
Krw
0.15
0.7
1
Kro
0.2
0.7
1
Krg
0.2
0.9
1
The units of variables data has been
ensured before inputted to the software,
example: the cumulative gas produced

with unit Bscf, its ensure compatible unit

while inputted to the software, its cause
different result with the previous trial on
class and will be discussed detail in Result
& Discussion.
After determine the relative
permeability models, we conduct the
simulation and prediction using each
models and the result will be plotted to the
oil recovery and cumulative produce
(Oil,water and gas) of run prediction.
The result will be compared and
find the differences between three models
of relative permeability.
4. RESULT & DISCUSSION
Case 1
Prediction using oil production constraint
8000 STB/day. After we set the relative
permeability model in case 1 we get the
zero tank at May 20th 2014. At this date,
the oil Recovery factor is 37.6855 %, Cum
oil Produce is 40.0921 MMSTB, Cum Gas
52878.9 BSCF, Cum Water 15.5989
MMSTB.

Case 2
Prediction using oil production constraint
8000 STB/day. After we set the relative
permeability model in case 1 we get the
zero tank at November 28th 2012. At this
date, the oil Recovery factor is 33.6399
%, Cum oil Produce is 35.7881 MMSTB,
Cum Gas 52909.5 BSCF, Cum Water
12.3879 MMSTB.
Case 3
Prediction using oil production constraint
8000 STB/day. After we set the relative
permeability model in case 1 we get the
zero tank at February 23th 2014. At this
date, the oil Recovery factor is 37.0388

%, Cum oil Produce is 39.4041 MMSTB,

Cum Gas 52885.8 BSCF, Cum Water
15.1023 MMSTB.
After simulate the each case with relative
permeability value, the farthest well life is
the well in Case 1(at May 20th 2014) and
then the second is the well in Case 3 (at
May 20th 2014) and then the last well
Case 2 (at November 28th 2012)
5. CONCLUSION
This study was carried out to
analyze the oil recovery characteristics in
heavy oil reservoirs. A major challenge in
oil fields is the decreasing oil production
rate with time and the remaining amount
of oil after well shutdown.
The simulation result showed
variations of Oil recovery factor, Cum
Produce of Oil, Gas and Water. This is
caused by the variation of relative
permeability value. The higher residual oil
saturation value, the shorter oil recovery
factor and the greater residual water
saturation.
The maximum value of oil
recovery factor is in Case 1 that is 37.6855
%
REFERENCES
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<
http://www.geomore.com/porosity-andpermeability-2/ >.
Acesso em: 2014/05/15.

Ahmed, Tarek H. Reservoir Engineering

Handbook
Third
Edition.
Gulf
Professional
Publishing
Company,
Houston, Texas. [2006]

P. Zitha, R. F., D. Zornes, K. Brown, and

K. Mohanty. Increasing Hydrocarbon
Recovery Factors. Society of Petroleum
Engineers 2011. Disponvel em: <
http://www.spe.org/industry/docs/recovery
fac ors.pdf >. Acesso em: 2014/05/20.