Oil and Gas

Oil and Gas | Reservoir Engineering

Waterflood Design, Management, and Optimization

Course Code: N606
Instructors:  Brian Weatherill
Course Outline:  Download
Format and Duration:
3 days

Summary

This course, designed for practicing petroleum engineers, geologists, and other technical support staff, provides a basic understanding of the key technical aspects which are involved across the entire life cycle of a properly designed waterflood scheme. The sessions include an overview of data requirements, methods employed to obtain the data, and methods used to interpret the data for the design, management, and optimisation of an effective waterflood. Participants will be provided with the analytical tools that enable estimation of the primary recovery baseline production forecast and incremental waterflood recovery predictions. The sessions will also provide practical training to address waterflooding issues that are relevant in today's oil field operations.  Modern methods of optimisation of existing more mature waterfloods will also be covered in detail – including the use of streamline models for waterflood surveillance and optimisation.

Duration and Training Method

A three-day classroom with In-class examples and hands-on exercises. Participants are requested to bring a calculator to the course.

Course Overview

Participants will learn to:

  1. Apply geological principles to assess waterflood feasibility.
  2. Evaluate important water flood performance issues.
  3. Construct and use a fractional flow curve for water flood design, forecasts, diagnostics, and enhancement.
  4. Assess practical water flood surveillance methods and make maintenance (optimisation) decisions.
  5. Judge whether your water flood is performing too slowly and propose methods of accelerating and enhancing waterflood performance.
  6. Evaluate how horizontal well technologies represent a "Game Changer" for existing and future waterflood schemes.
  7. Calculate vertical and horizontal well steady state water injection rates.
  8. Evaluate knowledge gained from a number of classic waterfloods.
  9. Judge the usefulness or applicability of detailed numerical models versus streamline models for waterflood performance predictions.
Course Agenda
  • Overview of Petroleum Geology and Waterflooding Implications
  • Review Data Requirements for Reservoir Description
  • Review Methods for Estimating Primary Recovery Forecasts
  • Consideration of Various Analytical Waterflood Models
  • Understanding Natural Water Drives
  • Waterflood Design and Production Forecast Example
  • Water Quality Issues – Review
  • Regulatory Requirements for Waterflood Applications
  • Waterflooding Tight Reservoirs
  • Consideration of Modern Surveillance Methods for Mature Waterfloods
  • Waterflood Management and Optimisation Methods
  • Use of Steamline Models and Numerical Models for Waterflood Optimisation

Day One

  1. Review of Geological Aspects Important to Waterflooding
  2. Implications of Pressure and Temperature
  3. Understanding Reservoir Fluids
  4. Reservoir Rock Properties
  5. Reserve Estimating Methods
  6. Drive Mechanisms
  7. Primary Recovery Modelling and Production Forecasts

Day Two

  1. Waterflood Displacement Mechanisms
  2. Fractional Flow Modelling
  3. Segregated Flow
  4. Effect of Finite Capillary Pressure Zone
  5. Stratified Reservoirs
  6. Areal Sweep Efficiency
  7. Analytical Design Examples
  8. Waterflood Candidate Screening
  9. Pilot Waterflooding

Day Three

  1. Water Quality Considerations
  2. Regulatory Requirements
  3. Waterflood Surveillance of Mature Waterfloods
  4. Modern Waterflood Improvement and Optimisation Methods
  5. Pattern Design and Alteration Examples
  6. Numerical Simulation Considerations
  7. Each day has a number of practical examples (exercises) to consider by the participants.

Anyone who needs to become more fluent with the concepts involved in oil field waterflooding. For example anyone who is working with reservoir engineers in a multi-disciplinary team i.e. technologists, geologists, production engineers, business analysts, entry level reservoir engineers or reservoir engineers who have not previously been involved in waterflood studies or training. This course is also beneficial for anyone who has inherited a mature waterflood with the need for optimisation.

Brian Weatherill

Background
Brian began his oil and gas career in 1973 as a junior reservoir engineer with Shell Canada. His initial assignment at Shell involved optimizing performance of waterfloods in the Midale Saskatchewan area, and then progressed to gaining a broad spectrum of petroleum engineering experience, including oil and gas field evaluation, wellsite geology and test operations, well test analysis, waterflood project design and surveillance, Enhanced Oil Recovery using CO2 and enriched hydrocarbons miscible flooding project design and surveillance and oilfield optimization and rehabilitation.  He spent several years managing the petroleum engineering technology and research group at Shell’s Calgary Research Centre, in charge of the petrophysical, reservoir, production, facilities and corrosion engineering disciplines.

Subsequently, Brian had a four year assignment as Manager of Chemical Technology at NOWSCO Well Service, an international well servicing company based in Canada, responsible for management of the service laboratory and engineering technology development and implementation. Brian then spent two years as Chief Operating Officer of a private company developing oilfield production operations in Russia. Responsibilities included preparation of project development designs, operations plans, organisational plans and economic evaluations together with presentation of plans to management and the financial community.

In 1998 Brian joined RPS’ predecessor, Adams Pearson Associates (APA Petroleum Engineering) as a consulting reservoir engineer, specializing in petroleum engineering based evaluations, studies and project designs in a broad spectrum of oil and gas development and operations arenas. He has been the lead reservoir engineering specialist on numerous projects, reserve evaluations, reserve audits and resource evaluations in Western Canada, Canadian East Coast, Canada’s Arctic Frontier, Alaska, UK North Sea, Tunisia, Egypt, Tanzania, India, Albania, Croatia, Colombia, Argentina, Syria, Iraq, Romania, Hungary, Netherlands, France, Kazakhstan and Russia. 

He lives in an “empty nest” Calgary with his wife Lee, and is an avid hockey, skiing, sailing, aviation, scuba and motorcycling enthusiast.

Affiliations and Accreditation
BAS University of British Columbia - Geological Engineering
SPE - Member
Alberta Professional Engineering - Member
APEGA - Member

Courses Taught
N606: Waterflood Design, Management, and Optimization
N967: Introduction to Reservoir Engineering
N969: Optimizing Waterfloods

CEU: 2.1 Continuing Education Units
PDH: 21 Professional Development Hours
Certificate: Certificate Issued Upon Completion
RPS is accredited by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) and is authorized to issue the IACET CEU. We comply with the ANSI/IACET Standard, which is recognised internationally as a standard of excellence in instructional practices.
We issue a Certificate of Attendance which verifies the number of training hours attended. Our courses are generally accepted by most professional licensing boards/associations towards continuing education credits. Please check with your licensing board to determine if the courses and certificate of attendance meet their specific criteria.