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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?
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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.
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