Application of fluid chemical compositions in reservoir management

PETR 168

Zhengzheng Chen, zhengc@conocophillips.com, Bradley Huizinga, G. Eric Michael, and Albert Holba. Upstream Technology, ConocoPhillips, 600 N. Dairy Ashford, Permian 3024, Houston, TX 77079
Heavy oils are dense, viscous, and in many cases, acidic fluids. The development and recovery of these viscous oils is challenging and largely relies on solid understanding of fluid properties, fluid phase behaviors, and their impact on recovery mechanisms. Molecular characterization, when integrated with chemometric methods, is an effective tool to understand fluid behavior in heavy oil reservoirs. At the stage of reservoir appraisal, chemical analysis of side wall core extracts accurately predicted oil properties. The predicted oil properties and their variation in the reservoir provide key information for: 1. selecting recovery mechanisms; 2. predicting reservoir performance. At the stage of reservoir production, fluid chemistry has been successfully applied to monitor source apportionment from multiple producing zones. Compared with traditional engineering methods used in reservoir appraisal and surveillance, molecular characterization is cost-effective, requiring no interference with production or logging tools.