Water Management Experience in Mature Basin in South Argentina Available to Purchase

During the oil production in mature fields, the implementation of water flooding projects plays an important role for increasing the oil production and the recovery factor of the reservoirs, and this is the case of the Golfo San Jorge Basin in Patagonia Argentina (GSJB). This basin, located in the central Patagonia (Figure 1), is the oldest productive basin of Argentina where the first economic discovery took place in 1907 in Comodoro Rivadavia. With 13.973 active oil wells (Jun 2016), Golfo San Jorge is the first oil producer basin of Argentina producing 251.000 bpd of oil (49 % of Argentinian oil production) and 3,2 MMbpd of water.

The total of water produced are injected in 3.140 wells used for water flooding projects, where 46% of the oil is produced from this method. The continued implementation of these projects, in company with the drilling of new wells, incorporate water from the reservoirs to the production systems continuously introducing various technical, economic and environmental challenges. As part of a comprehensive water management strategy this paper describe different process and operative considerations, as the result of 109 years of production in the oldest basin of Argentina. The following topics will be addressed:

• Water production and management in Golfo San Jorge Basin

• Water treatment and distribution (Surface and subsurface)

• Water flooding projects trends

• Water balance: Bottlenecks Analysis

• Water management cost and how affect the total operational cost

• Well integrity management

• Artificial Lift challenge's, among others

Figure 1

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Golfo San Jorge Basin Location

Figure 1

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Golfo San Jorge Basin Location

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As results it is mentioned the important of to take the decision for manage water during the development of fields. Many challenges arise during the production of a mature field with high volumes of water, but is important to understand about the need not only to do it, but also to have and to apply a field operation model to extend the life of mature fields.

Finally, real statistics, information about facilities, best practices and recommendations, are presented with the objective of provide a guide for developing similar fields.