Considerations on Mathematical Modeling of Producer-Injector Interference

About the authors:

Sergei V. Stepanov, Senior Expert, Tyumen Petroleum Research Center, Tyumen, Russia; Dr. Sci. (Tech.), Professor, Tyumen Petroleum Research Center Specialized Department, School of Natural Sciences, University of Tyumen, Tyumen, Russia; svstepanov@tnnc.rosneft.ru

Sergey V. Sokolov, Cand. Sci. (Tech.), Senior Expert, Tyumen Petroleum Research Center; svsokolov2@tnnc.rosneft.ru

Alexander A. Ruchkin, Cand. Sci. (Tech.), Expert, Tyumen Petroleum Research Center; eLibrary AuthorID, aaruchkin@tnnc.rosneft.ru

Anatoliy V. Stepanov, Expert, Tyumen Petroleum Research Center, Tyumen, Russia; Cand. Sci. (Phys.-Math.), Associate Professor, Specialized Department of Tyumen Petroleum Research Center, Higher School of Engineering EG, Industrial University of Tyumen, Tyumen, Russia; avstepanov5@tnnc.rosneft.ru

Aleksandr V. Knyazev, Senior Manager, Tyumen Petroleum Research Center; avknyazev@tnnc.rosneft.ru

Aleksandr V. Korytov, Section Head, Tyumen Petroleum Research Center; avkorytov2@tnnc.rosneft.ru

Abstract:

Oil field development would be inefficient without a reliable understanding of the level of wells interference. There is a whole lot of computational methods using a variety of physical and mathematical models to assess the interference of production and injection wells. The years-long application of these methods reveals that the evaluation results are not always the same even at a qualitative level. Therefore, it is both important to comprehend the potential of existing methods and to develop new ones.

In this paper, the authors review the existing methods for estimating well interference, including a new method, which breaks down the computation area into Voronoi polygons with account of the material balance between the polygons. The number of polygons corresponds to the number of wells; the polygons’ outer boundaries can be either impermeable or permeable, with optional flow capacity. A total of 11 methods is discussed in the paper, including a widely used statistical data analysis, as well as flow simulation as the most resource-intensive approach.

The paper also describes the application of a number of methods to estimate the interference of production and injection wells. A case study of an oil accumulation located in a heterogeneous reservoir used for synthetic model runs is described. The model runs demonstrated that various methods applied to the same oil target can give ambiguous results. Therefore, the authors conclude that there are no universal methods for estimating well interference and that a computationally efficient and physically meaningful approach would be most reliable for practical application.

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