Horizontal well drilling and multistage hydraulic fracturing have been demonstrated as effective approaches for stimulating oil production in the Bakken tight oil reservoir.However,after multiple years of production,p...Horizontal well drilling and multistage hydraulic fracturing have been demonstrated as effective approaches for stimulating oil production in the Bakken tight oil reservoir.However,after multiple years of production,primary oil recovery in the Bakken is generally less than 10%of the estimated original oil in place.Gas huff‘n’puff(HnP)has been tested in the Bakken Formation as an enhanced oil recovery(EOR)method;however,most field pilot test results showed no significant incremental oil production.One of the factors affecting HnP EOR performance is premature gas breakthrough,which is one of the most critical issues observed in the field because of the presence of interwell fractures.Consequently,injected gas rapidly reaches adjacent production wells without contacting reservoir rock and increasing oil recovery.Proper conformance control is therefore needed to avoid early gas breakthrough and improve EOR performance.In this study,a rich gas EOR pilot in the Bakken was carefully analyzed to collect the essential reservoir and operational data.A simulation model with 16 wells was then developed to reproduce the production history and predict the EOR performance with and without conformance control.EOR operational strategies,including single-and multiple-well HnP,with different gas injection constraints were investigated.The simulation results of single-well HnP without conformance control showed that a rich gas injection rate of at least 10 MMscfd was needed to yield meaningful incremental oil production.The strategy of conformance control via water injection could significantly improve oil production in the HnP well,but injecting an excessive amount of water also leads to water breakthrough and loss of oil production in the offset wells.By analyzing the production performance of the wells individually,the arrangement of wells was optimized for multiple-well HnP EOR.The multiwell results showed that rich gas EOR could improve oil production up to 7.4%by employing conformance control strategies.Furthermore,replaci展开更多
North Dakota’s oil production has been rapidly increasing during the past several years. The state’s oil production in March 2013 even increased to more than twice the quantity produced in March 2011, and the estima...North Dakota’s oil production has been rapidly increasing during the past several years. The state’s oil production in March 2013 even increased to more than twice the quantity produced in March 2011, and the estimated Bakken Formation reserves were reported very large compared with those of the United Arab Emirates. It eventually makes a question to us of how much oil will be able to be actually extracted with currently available technologies. To answer this question, this paper forecasts future oil development trend in North Dakota using the Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (S-ARIMA) model. Nonstationarity derived from a stochastic trend and the abrupt structural change of oil industry was a big potential problem, but through the Quandt Likelihood Ratio test, we found break points, which allowed us to select a model fitting period suitable for the S-ARIMA method to provide accurate statistical inference for the historical period. The seven major oil producing counties were investigated to determine whether the current oil boom was consistent across all oil fields in North Dakota. Empirical estimates show that North Dakota’s oil production will be more than double in the next five years. What we can predict with great certainty is that North Dakota’s influence over domestic and global oil supply systems will increase in the near future, especially over the next five to six years. This is good news for those who are concerned about domestic energy security in the USA.展开更多
A workflow that helps identify potential production sweet spots in the Middle Bakken tight oil play is proposed based on analysis of large amounts of production data. The proposed approach is a multivariate statistica...A workflow that helps identify potential production sweet spots in the Middle Bakken tight oil play is proposed based on analysis of large amounts of production data. The proposed approach is a multivariate statistical model that extracts relevant information from a training dataset of production wells to facilitate geological similarity comparison between economic and sub-economic production wells. The model is applied to the Middle Bakken tight oil play in southeastern Saskatchewan. Data screening for diagnostic geological indicators for sweet spots reveals that several geological factors indicative for conventional oil reservoirs seem to work for the Middle Bakken tight oil play as well. These factors include: a) the NE Torqunay-Rocanville Trend serving as a preferred regional migration path for connecting mature source rock in southern Williston Basin and the Middle Bakken tight reservoir in southeastern Saskatchewan; b) the oils in the Bakken tight reservoirs along the U.S. and Canada border are more likely from local matured Bakken source rocks; c) subtle structural components enhancing the convergence of dispersed hydrocarbons over a large area; d) top seal and lateral barrier improving preservation, thus favouring oil productivity; e) orientation of maximum horizontal stress coincident with the direction of the variogram spatial continuity in ultimate recoverable reserves, so the direction of horizontal well has a significant impact on the oil productivity.展开更多
The effective development of unconventional tight oil formations,such as Bakken,could include CO_(2) enhanced oil recovery(EOR)technologies with associated benefits of capturing and storing large quantities of CO_(2)....The effective development of unconventional tight oil formations,such as Bakken,could include CO_(2) enhanced oil recovery(EOR)technologies with associated benefits of capturing and storing large quantities of CO_(2).It is important to conduct the gas injection at miscible condition so as to reach maximum recovery efficiency.Therefore,determination of the minimum miscibility pressure(MMP)of reservoir live oileinjection gas system is critical in a miscible gas flooding project design.In this work,five candidate injection gases,namely CO_(2),CO_(2)-enriched flue gas,natural gas,nitrogen,and CO_(2)-enriched natural gas,were selected and their MMPs with a Bakken live oil were determined experimentally and numerically.At first,phase behaviour tests were conducted for the reconstituted Bakken live oil and the gases.CO_(2) outperformed other gases in terms of viscosity reduction and oil swelling.Rising bubble apparatus(RBA)determined live oileCO2 MMP as 11.9 MPa and all other gases higher than 30 MPa.The measured phase behaviour data were used to build and tune an equation-of-state(EOS)model,which calculated the MMPs for different live oilgas systems.The EOS-based calculations indicated that CO_(2) had the lowest MMP with live oil among the five gases in the study.At last,the commonly-accepted Alston et al.equation was used to calculate live oilepure CO_(2) MMP and effect of impurities in the gas phase on MMP change.The Bakken oile CO_(2) had a calculated MMP of 10.3 MPa from the Alston equation,and sensitivity analysis showed that slight addition of volatile impurities,particularly N_(2),can increase MMP significantly.展开更多
Characterizing the kerogen-hosted pore structures is essential to understand the adsorption,transport and storage potential in organic-rich shale reservoirs.In this paper,we first separated the organic matter(kerogen)...Characterizing the kerogen-hosted pore structures is essential to understand the adsorption,transport and storage potential in organic-rich shale reservoirs.In this paper,we first separated the organic matter(kerogen)from the mineral matrix in four different shale samples of the Bakken Formation with different thermal maturities and then analyzed their chemical compositions using the wide-angle X-ray scattering(WAXS)method.Next,we acquired small-angle X-ray scattering(SAXS)to characterize the structure of the organic matter and see how these two will relate.The WAXS results showed that the isolated kerogens have high purity(free of inorganic minerals)and retain different chemical compositions.Moreover,SAXS analysis revealed that the isolated kerogens have similar radius of gyration(R_(g))which is around 90Åand the molecules are in the compact mode.Based on the pore size distribution analysis from the SAXS data,two main peaks were found in all of these four samples with one peak less than 40Åand the other one larger than 1000Å.Also,the TEM images revealed that Sample 1 is abundant in pores with sizes around 20 nm while Sample 2 does not have pores of that size,which agrees with the results from the pore size distribution that was obtained from the SAXS method.Ultimately,this study exhibits how different analytical instruments can provide us with useful information from complex structures of geomaterials.展开更多
基金supported by the U.S.Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory under Award No.DEFE0024233the North Dakota Industrial Commission under the Award Nos.G-04-080(BPOP 2.0)and G-051-98(BPOP 3.0).
文摘Horizontal well drilling and multistage hydraulic fracturing have been demonstrated as effective approaches for stimulating oil production in the Bakken tight oil reservoir.However,after multiple years of production,primary oil recovery in the Bakken is generally less than 10%of the estimated original oil in place.Gas huff‘n’puff(HnP)has been tested in the Bakken Formation as an enhanced oil recovery(EOR)method;however,most field pilot test results showed no significant incremental oil production.One of the factors affecting HnP EOR performance is premature gas breakthrough,which is one of the most critical issues observed in the field because of the presence of interwell fractures.Consequently,injected gas rapidly reaches adjacent production wells without contacting reservoir rock and increasing oil recovery.Proper conformance control is therefore needed to avoid early gas breakthrough and improve EOR performance.In this study,a rich gas EOR pilot in the Bakken was carefully analyzed to collect the essential reservoir and operational data.A simulation model with 16 wells was then developed to reproduce the production history and predict the EOR performance with and without conformance control.EOR operational strategies,including single-and multiple-well HnP,with different gas injection constraints were investigated.The simulation results of single-well HnP without conformance control showed that a rich gas injection rate of at least 10 MMscfd was needed to yield meaningful incremental oil production.The strategy of conformance control via water injection could significantly improve oil production in the HnP well,but injecting an excessive amount of water also leads to water breakthrough and loss of oil production in the offset wells.By analyzing the production performance of the wells individually,the arrangement of wells was optimized for multiple-well HnP EOR.The multiwell results showed that rich gas EOR could improve oil production up to 7.4%by employing conformance control strategies.Furthermore,replaci
文摘North Dakota’s oil production has been rapidly increasing during the past several years. The state’s oil production in March 2013 even increased to more than twice the quantity produced in March 2011, and the estimated Bakken Formation reserves were reported very large compared with those of the United Arab Emirates. It eventually makes a question to us of how much oil will be able to be actually extracted with currently available technologies. To answer this question, this paper forecasts future oil development trend in North Dakota using the Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (S-ARIMA) model. Nonstationarity derived from a stochastic trend and the abrupt structural change of oil industry was a big potential problem, but through the Quandt Likelihood Ratio test, we found break points, which allowed us to select a model fitting period suitable for the S-ARIMA method to provide accurate statistical inference for the historical period. The seven major oil producing counties were investigated to determine whether the current oil boom was consistent across all oil fields in North Dakota. Empirical estimates show that North Dakota’s oil production will be more than double in the next five years. What we can predict with great certainty is that North Dakota’s influence over domestic and global oil supply systems will increase in the near future, especially over the next five to six years. This is good news for those who are concerned about domestic energy security in the USA.
基金The Program of Energy Research and Development (PERD) funded this study
文摘A workflow that helps identify potential production sweet spots in the Middle Bakken tight oil play is proposed based on analysis of large amounts of production data. The proposed approach is a multivariate statistical model that extracts relevant information from a training dataset of production wells to facilitate geological similarity comparison between economic and sub-economic production wells. The model is applied to the Middle Bakken tight oil play in southeastern Saskatchewan. Data screening for diagnostic geological indicators for sweet spots reveals that several geological factors indicative for conventional oil reservoirs seem to work for the Middle Bakken tight oil play as well. These factors include: a) the NE Torqunay-Rocanville Trend serving as a preferred regional migration path for connecting mature source rock in southern Williston Basin and the Middle Bakken tight reservoir in southeastern Saskatchewan; b) the oils in the Bakken tight reservoirs along the U.S. and Canada border are more likely from local matured Bakken source rocks; c) subtle structural components enhancing the convergence of dispersed hydrocarbons over a large area; d) top seal and lateral barrier improving preservation, thus favouring oil productivity; e) orientation of maximum horizontal stress coincident with the direction of the variogram spatial continuity in ultimate recoverable reserves, so the direction of horizontal well has a significant impact on the oil productivity.
基金The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Petroleum Technology Research Centre(PTRC)and the participating oil companies in the PTRC's STEPS(Sustainable Technologies for Energy Production Systems)program.The authors also wish to express their appreciation to Danie Subido,Kevin Rispler,and Rupan Shi for carrying out the experimental measurements,and to Brenda Tacik for editorial support.
文摘The effective development of unconventional tight oil formations,such as Bakken,could include CO_(2) enhanced oil recovery(EOR)technologies with associated benefits of capturing and storing large quantities of CO_(2).It is important to conduct the gas injection at miscible condition so as to reach maximum recovery efficiency.Therefore,determination of the minimum miscibility pressure(MMP)of reservoir live oileinjection gas system is critical in a miscible gas flooding project design.In this work,five candidate injection gases,namely CO_(2),CO_(2)-enriched flue gas,natural gas,nitrogen,and CO_(2)-enriched natural gas,were selected and their MMPs with a Bakken live oil were determined experimentally and numerically.At first,phase behaviour tests were conducted for the reconstituted Bakken live oil and the gases.CO_(2) outperformed other gases in terms of viscosity reduction and oil swelling.Rising bubble apparatus(RBA)determined live oileCO2 MMP as 11.9 MPa and all other gases higher than 30 MPa.The measured phase behaviour data were used to build and tune an equation-of-state(EOS)model,which calculated the MMPs for different live oilgas systems.The EOS-based calculations indicated that CO_(2) had the lowest MMP with live oil among the five gases in the study.At last,the commonly-accepted Alston et al.equation was used to calculate live oilepure CO_(2) MMP and effect of impurities in the gas phase on MMP change.The Bakken oile CO_(2) had a calculated MMP of 10.3 MPa from the Alston equation,and sensitivity analysis showed that slight addition of volatile impurities,particularly N_(2),can increase MMP significantly.
文摘Characterizing the kerogen-hosted pore structures is essential to understand the adsorption,transport and storage potential in organic-rich shale reservoirs.In this paper,we first separated the organic matter(kerogen)from the mineral matrix in four different shale samples of the Bakken Formation with different thermal maturities and then analyzed their chemical compositions using the wide-angle X-ray scattering(WAXS)method.Next,we acquired small-angle X-ray scattering(SAXS)to characterize the structure of the organic matter and see how these two will relate.The WAXS results showed that the isolated kerogens have high purity(free of inorganic minerals)and retain different chemical compositions.Moreover,SAXS analysis revealed that the isolated kerogens have similar radius of gyration(R_(g))which is around 90Åand the molecules are in the compact mode.Based on the pore size distribution analysis from the SAXS data,two main peaks were found in all of these four samples with one peak less than 40Åand the other one larger than 1000Å.Also,the TEM images revealed that Sample 1 is abundant in pores with sizes around 20 nm while Sample 2 does not have pores of that size,which agrees with the results from the pore size distribution that was obtained from the SAXS method.Ultimately,this study exhibits how different analytical instruments can provide us with useful information from complex structures of geomaterials.
