A Streamline Based Reservoir Management Workflow to Maximize Oil Recovery

Abstract This paper presents a novel approach to integrated reservoir management in a mature carbonate field. The Lekhwair field (Oman) has been on production since 1976. It has a complex development history, with periods of primary recovery, shut-in, 5-spot, inverted 9-spot, and line drive waterflooding. The challenge is to develop two reservoirs, separated by a shale barrier, using a combination of commingled vertical and horizontal wells. This paper presents a robust and proven reservoir management workflow that can be used to evaluate short to medium term development scenarios proposed by production technologists. Traditionally, reservoir engineers make medium to long term field development decisions based on complex reservoir models, while production technologists make short term well level decisions based on operational data. As a result, the reservoir engineers and production technologists frequently work independent of each other. This paper provides the workflow and techniques that enable reservoir engineers and production technologists to work in an integrated manner and thereby increase production and recovery in a mature field. An integrated reservoir management workflow was developed that can help not only the reservoir engineer to understand the reservoir dynamics, but also the production technologist to evaluate everyday production opportunities. This evaluation is brought about by integrating streamlines from finite-difference simulations, well performance data, and novel performance diagnostic plots. This approach was successful in developing a dynamic model for the Lekhwair field. The proposed workflow and applications provide efficient ways to maximize oil recovery in a seamless workflow between reservoir engineers and production technologists. This paper presents a combination of conventional and innovative techniques that provide a novel workflow for reservoir engineers and production technologists to quickly evaluate various reservoir development scenarios.