Abstract
The Blane Field, North Sea, has one injection well and two production wells and is tied back to the Ula Field platform. The original scaling risk assessment was based on injection of platform produced water (PW) with minor seawater (SW) (~90:10 PW:SW). However, after injection of 25:75 PW:SW for only 6 weeks, a change in operational circumstances on the Ula Field meant that only 10:90 PW:SW injection water could be supplied for the next 18 months. There was a risk that this might result in unmanageable BaSO4 scaling conditions in the production wells but the alternative would be to cease injection, leading to reservoir pressure decline and loss of oil revenues.
The need for a rapid decision negated the use of reactive transport reservoir simulations to predict the future BaSO4 scaling risk under the new injection scenario so a novel, alternative approach was adopted. A history matched ECLIPSE model served as the basis for predicting the types of water entering the production wells over time and their rates. A 1-D reactive transport model was then used to predict the Cl, Ba and SO4 composition of these waters after accounting for the effects of reservoir reactions. These results were integrated in a spreadsheet to provide predictions of Cl, Ba and SO4 concentrations in the produced water from each well over time.
The results for future injection water scenarios indicated that the scaling risk would increase over time in the wells but, due to deposition of BaSO4 and CaSO4 in the reservoir, the BaSO4 scaling risk would be manageable even allowing for uncertainties associated with this approach.
Based on these results, and those of associated studies, a decision was made to continue water injection resulting in avoidance of loss in oil revenues. This novel scaling prediction approach may be useful on other fields where reactive transport reservoir simulations may not be possible.
