Synonym: Waterflood Recovery (WF) = Waterflooding
One of the Reservoir flow drive mechanisms and Recovery Methods based on injecting water in the petroleum reservoir in order to support formation pressure and production rates in oil producers and improve oil recovery.
The Expected Ultimate Recovery during the waterflood sweep can be assessed with the following formula:
EUR_{WF} = E_S \, E_D + (1-E_S) \cdot EUR_{ND} |
where – displacement efficiency,
– sweep efficiency.
One of the key principle of Waterflooding is to maintain Instantaneous Voidage Replacement Ratio (IVRR) above unit value at all times:
{\rm IVRR} = \frac{B_w \, q^{\downarrow}_{WI}}{B_w \, q^{uparrow}_W + [ B_o + B_g \, ( {\rm GOR} - R_s) ] \, q^{uparrow}_O } \geq 1 |
which is equivalent to maintainign the surface water injection to liquid production ratio as:
\frac{q^{\downarrow}_{WI}}{q^{\uparrow}_L} \geq Y_W +(1-Y_W) \cdot \left[ \frac{B_o}{B_w} + \frac{B_g}{B_w} (GOR - R_s) \right] |
This ensures maintaining the formation pressure at initial value.
Due to numerous reasons this condition is very difficult to implement in practise.
Petroleum Industry / Upstream / Production / Subsurface Production / Reserves Depletion / Recovery Methods
[ Waterflood Recovery Quality ][ Instantaneous Voidage Replacement Ratio (IVRR) ] [ Cumulative Voidage Replacement Ratio (CVRR) ]
[ Field Development Plan ][ Natural Depletion Recovery (NDR) ]
Physics / Fluid Dynamics / Percolation / Reservoir flow / Reservoir flow drive mechanisms
[ Aquifer ] [ Aquifer Drive @model ]
[ Subsurface E&P Disciplines ][ Field Study & Modelling ]
James T. Smith, Wiliam M. Cobb, Waterflooding (2010)