Optimisation of the BED 15 A/R “C” Reservoir Water-Flooding Project Based on Robust Integrated Reservoir Modeling

Xavier Le Varlet*, Adel El-Sabagh, and Ahmed Toukhy
Bapetco, Egypt
*[email protected]

The success of water-flooding in complex reservoir systems depends largely on the robustness of the model used in the study. Therefore the complex reservoir architecture and heterogeneities should be optimally captured in the 3-D static models used for history-matching and forecasts. This case study illustrates the impact of an integrated reservoir-modeling study on our reservoir management strategy, which aimed to maximize oil production and the field’s ultimate recovery. The BED 15 field is located in the Badr-El-Din Concession in the Western Desert in Egypt where oil is trapped in the Cretaceous Abu Roash C tidal sand channel reservoir. When production declined due to the lack of pressure support, a secondary recovery scheme was initiated with water injection (3 producers and 2 injectors). However, the existing first-pass model was too coarse to explain the unexpected early water breakthrough observed in some of the producers. Therefore, it was decided to construct a more detailed model ensuring full utilization of all reservoir analogue data, knowledge and concepts in the subsurface study. To build reservoir models that captured theirs most significant and sensitive aspects, seismic, wireline log, core data and geological analogues were used. A wide range of 3-D static models, ranging from homogeneous and highly heterogeneous, were constructed prior to validation with dynamic simulation modeling. The models used both deterministic and probabilistic methods that represented various scenarios for reservoir thickness (conditioned to seismic data), lateral sand development, internal facies and reservoir property distribution. The more heterogeneous models provided the best history match and were used to forecast production and optimize the reservoir development plan. Based on this work, it was decided to drill a new well in 2007 in an unswept area identified in the northeast of the field.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90077©2008 GEO 2008 Middle East Conference and Exhibition, Manama, Bahrain