About This Item
- Full TextFull Text(subscription required)
- Pay-Per-View PurchasePay-Per-View
Purchase Options Explain
Share This Item
The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
AAPG Bulletin
Abstract
AAPG Bulletin, V.
2012. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.
DOI:10.1306/06141110169
Hydrodynamic aquifer or reservoir compartmentalization?
Ann Muggeridge,1 Hisham Mamode2
1Imperial College London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom; [email protected]
2Imperial College London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom; present address: BP Exploration and Production, Wareham, Dorset BH20 5JR, United Kingdom; [email protected]
ABSTRACT
Changes in oil-water contact (OWC) depth across a field are often a signature of reservoir compartmentalization as a result of faulting or stratigraphic barriers, such as shales, but may equally well be caused by an underlying hydrodynamic aquifer. In particular, the pressure-depth data obtained from an aquifer whose flow is changing over time can look very similar to that obtained from a compartmentalized reservoir. Misunderstanding which of these mechanisms causes the observed changes in OWC across the field may result in poor estimates of oil in place and reduced recovery. To address this problem, an analytic expression is presented to estimate the time taken for a steady state tilted OWC to be established once an aquifer starts flowing. A comparison with simulations of hydrodynamic aquifers in homogeneous, compartmentalized, and heterogeneous reservoir models shows that this expression can be used in combination with the one derived by M. K. Hubbert, for the steady state tilt of the OWC, to clarify whether a reservoir contains barriers or baffles to flow or may simply have not yet reached equilibrium.
Pay-Per-View Purchase Options
The article is available through a document delivery service. Explain these Purchase Options.
| Watermarked PDF Document: $14 | |
| Open PDF Document: $24 |
AAPG Member?
Please login with your Member username and password.
Members of AAPG receive access to the full AAPG Bulletin Archives as part of their membership. For more information, contact the AAPG Membership Department at [email protected].