Rapid screening of oil-rim reservoirs for development and management

Abstract

As an improvement over existing screening techniques, we introduce the relative mobile energy of primary gas-cap to the aquifer (Egw) as a new parameter for characterizing the performance of oil-rim reservoirs. Egw integrates key static and dynamic reservoir properties. To account for the time value of production, the framework allows maximizing the discounted recovery factor (DRF) of oil, gas or total hydrocarbon as the objective function. Employing detailed simulations of different well-defined oil-rim models, DRFs of oil, gas and total hydrocarbons have been correlated against Egw for common development concepts and well types. These correlations have resulted in a new screening technique for both green and brown oil-rim reservoirs. In addition to presenting simple generic charts for quick evaluation of oil-rim reservoirs, the main contributions of this work include the introduction of Egw as a new performance-characterizing parameter, and the flexibility to consider the DRF of any of oil, gas or total hydrocarbon as the basis for screening an oil-rim reservoir for development planning and field management. Using the example of a brown oil-rim reservoir, the applicability and robustness of the new screening technique are demonstrated.