Thursday, Dec 1 @ 1:30PM in 198 Slawson

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{Abstract}

Currently, around half of the fossil fuel requirements are fulfilled through unconventional hydrocarbon reservoirs. Economic asset development planning, performance forecasting, and the production sustainability from such reservoirs are challenging due to their complex geology that results in poor primary recovery. Unconventional Enhanced Oil Recovery (UEOR) is the next step in unlocking untapped unconventional and tight hydrocarbon reservoirs' full potential and helps in minimizing environmental footprints by targeting the remaining hydrocarbon left behind and consequently avoiding unnecessary drilling.

To screen and choose candidate wells (pilot) for UEOR by forecasting their response to different EOR techniques and solvents, and to anticipate the UEOR process performance, the oil & gas operating companies conduct extensive numerical simulation studies that take several months to complete for comprehensive techno-economic assessment. The industry uses Dimensionless Type curves as a benchmarking tool for evaluating the performance of primary production. However, even for conventional hydrocarbon-producing reservoirs, there haven't yet been physics-based dimensionless performance type curves produced and utilized for Enhanced Oil Recovery.

In this study, Smart Physics-inspired Compositional Dimensionless Type Curves (SPiC TCD) for UEOR are presented as an alternative to extensive numerical simulation studies that honor physical laws, provide fast screening and precise solutions in a significantly shorter computational run time. The proposed SPiC TCD responds to operators’ W3H questions (Where to inject, When to inject, What to inject, and How to inject an EOR solvent) while performing comprehensive field screening and designing UEOR field pilots. The novel SPiC TCD can save millions of dollars through an optimized UEOR practice by attaining the oil and gas industry's current portfolio, which includes avoiding the needless drilling of new wells, reducing carbon emissions, and utilizing subsurface resources in an environmentally friendly manner.