Abstract
Heavy oil reservoirs constitute a huge proportion of total world oil reserves. Among different thermal recovery methods, steam injection is the most widely used method in this type of reservoirs. Monitoring of swept volume over time is very important for evaluation of a thermal project. Thermal well testing offers an inexpensive method to estimate flow capacity and swept volume in thermal recovery processes. Pressure falloff tests are usually used for this purpose.
Estimation of steam zone properties and swept volume from falloff test data in this study is based on the theory developed by Eggenschwiler et al. (1980), assuming a composite reservoir with two regions of highly contrasting fluid mobilities and the interface as an impermeable boundary. Consequently, the swept zone acts as a closed reservoir for a short duration, during which the pressure response is characterized by pseudo steady state behavior.
The purpose of this work is to investigate the feasibility of thermal well test analysis and effects of different parameters. Pressure falloff testing is simulated using a numerical thermal simulator. The generated pressure falloff data are then analyzed to calculate swept volume and reservoir parameters. Different gridblock models are designed.
Results of this study show that the swept volume, swept zone permeability and skin factor can be reasonably estimated from pressure falloff tests. The effects of gravity, dip, permeability anisotropy and irregular shapes of swept zones are investigated. It is found that these factors do not affect the estimated results significantly. Results of 3D models show that the estimation of flow capacity and steam swept volume depends on the vertical positions where pressure data are measured (i.e. the location of pressure gauges). This finding should be considered in thermal well test interpretation.
