Fracturamiento Térmico Inducido para Mejorar las Tasas de Inyección de Agua en el Campo Villano

Abstract

Generally, during water injection projects studies, thermal effects, which may cause changes in reservoir behavior and properties, are not considered. The injection of cold water into a relatively warm reservoir can relieve horizontal thermoelastic stresses, which are present in the reservoir, allowing the formation of fractures, which extend according to the flood advance. This phenomenon is known as thermal induced fracturing (TIF). The main objective of this work is to determine the behavior of the injection flow of Villano Field’s re-injectors wells, where this water injection technique has been applied, with the support of the ECLIPSE 100 temperature option, that will allow to simulate the cold water injection in the reservoir, so that the behavior of the reservoir properties can be evaluated with the generated temperature differential. In addition, a workflow optimized for the Villano Field is presented, which makes possible to estimate the magnitude of the thermoelastic stresses relief and the fracture length according to the volume of water injected. The results obtained by the applied methodology had shown that the injection of water at low temperature generates a relatively cold region, which affects the thermoelastic stresses of the reservoir rock, resulting on a relief of approximately 600 [psi] until the date of the study, Also the channels generated as a result of the creation of fractures, allowed to increase the fluid injection flow rates to the Main Hollín aquifer being the best one the one V-12 well with a 60% of incremental. Finally, an economic analysis of the thermal fracturing was carried out in which its viability with respect to the conventional treatment systems of production water is highlighted, being an economical alternative with a low cost of maintenance.