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Abstract Redeveloping old oil fields can yield great results. This paper summarizes the progress made in redeveloping Colombia's oldest field, La Cira-Infantas. It is located in Middle Magdalena River Valley near the city Barrancabermeja. The field was discovered in 1918, and it has produced nearly 750 million barrels of oil from an estimated OOIP of 3.9 billion barrels of oil within the shallow Miocene and Oligocene age sands that comprise the producing zones. Oil gravities range from 16 to 28 degrees API. This field had neared an economic limit, but partners Ecopetrol and Oxy decided to implement a waterflood redevelopment project in 2005. The waterflood redevelopment is proceeding well. Redevelopment involves over 1,500 wells being drilled or worked over in order to increase recovery factor by about 8% from the C sands. The redevelopment has involved reconfiguration of old waterflood areas and waterflood expansion into new areas. In addition to the proper reservoir conditions, redevelopment success is due to an understanding of historical performance, the integration of two companies, management of community issues, a build up of rig resources, and the installation of additional facilities. From September 2005 to January 2009, the production has increased from about 5,000 to 22,000 BOPD. The recent redevelopment has performed similar to expectations built upon evaluations of past development. After upcoming development, the field's production is anticipated to reach around 40,000 BOPD. The Operator's knowledge with a partner's expertise in redevelopment has been a powerful combination. The type of approach being used for the redevelopment may be insightful for other old fields. Potential analogies are not limited to Colombia. Introduction The La Cira-Infantas field is located in the Middle Magdalena Valley near Barrancabermeja, Colombia, South America (Figure 1). Dickey (1992) documented the interesting history of this field. A Spanish explorer, Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesdada, came across an oil seep in 1536. This oil seep was named the Spanish word for princesses (Infantas). The name Infantas was in reference to the two daughters of the King of Spain. The Tropical Oil Company discovered the field after spudding the Infantas 2 well in December 1917. Production was initiated in 1918, and the field is credited as the first oil field to be discovered in Colombia. The Tropical Oil Company became an affiliate of the Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) in 1919, and the concession reverted to the Colombian government in 1951. Field production had reached about 65,000 BOPD in 1940 by relying on natural drive mechanisms (Figure 2). Some of the gas was re-injected from 1929 to 1972, but these unmeasured volumes appear to have had only a minor impact on oil rate and reserves. Additionally, very little aquifer support was observed. Water injection was initiated in the northern half of the field, La Cira, in 1957. The waterflood showed favorable response, and water injection was successfully expanded to other areas of the field.
- South America > Colombia > Santander Department (1.00)
- North America > United States > Texas > Reeves County (0.54)
- Phanerozoic > Cenozoic (1.00)
- Phanerozoic > Mesozoic > Cretaceous > Lower Cretaceous (0.69)
- Phanerozoic > Mesozoic > Cretaceous > Upper Cretaceous (0.47)
- Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)
- Water & Waste Management > Water Management > Lifecycle > Disposal/Injection (0.70)
- South America > Colombia > Tolima Department > Middle Magdalena Basin > La Luna Shale Formation (0.99)
- South America > Colombia > Santander Department > Middle Magdalena Basin > La Luna Shale Formation (0.99)
- South America > Colombia > Santander Department > Middle Magdalena Basin > La Cira Infantas Field (0.99)
- (12 more...)
Abstract This paper summarizes the achievements of an alliance between Ecopetrol, S.A. and Schlumberger to revitalize the Casabe field, a mature field located in Colombia. Challenges have been multifaceted in this mature complex field. Some relate to the heterogeneous nature of the reservoirs, limited sand continuity, unfavorable mobility for the waterflooding ongoing process, associated sand production, and wells lost due to collapses. Parallel efforts on fast-track studies and field development planning (FDP) were performed. The FDP incorporates technology application such as:3D seismic New geological model New correlation in detailed scale Drilling in fresh oil areas, infill, and new structures Selective water injection New waterflood design and monitoring Strong increment of water injected by pattern. From 2004 to 2008, the integrated project has increased the oil production from 5,200 BOPD to 11,900 BOPD with a reserves replacement ratio of more than 100% per year. All these factors provided extension to the life of this complex field while bringing additional financial benefits for the partners. The article presents the FDP planning methodology, that overall proved to be useful and repeatable for other fields. Introduction The Casabe field, discovered by Shell in 1941, is located in the Mid-Magdalena Valley basin and it has 1,120 wells, which have accumulated 284 MMbbl of oil as of December 2007. The productive formations, from bottom to top, are La Paz, Mugrosa, and Colorado, with depths ranging from 2,200 to 5,500 ft. The production peaked at 46,000 BOPD in 1953 and achieved a primary recovery factor of 13% under natural mechanisms. Since 1985, the field has been under waterflooding, which raised the recovery to 19.8%. Waterflooding has been a challenge due to the very heterogeneous nature of the reservoirs, sand continuity complexity, the oil viscosity, sand production and wells lost due to collapses. The location of the field is shown in Figure 1. Since 2004 Ecopetrol, S.A., and Schlumberger have made a combined effort to revitalize this mature field to increase its value through a Field Management Alliance. The Field Revitalization effort started with fast-track integrated analytical studies to prove potential in the most prolific sectors of the field, which initially led to drill 6 new producers and repair more than 20. In 4 years, these numbers have increased to 65 new wells and 180 workovers, and 60 additional wells were planned to be drilled in 2009. As new data has been collected and incorporated, different modeling approaches helped us to understand reservoir behavior and mechanisms. The field redevelopment plan embraced 3Dseismic data acquisition, selective water injection, appraisal wells and technology application, as well as facilities upgrades to handle the incremental production and injection volumes. This paper will expand on the integrated planning and implementation of this revitalization "production project."
- South America > Colombia > Antioquia Department (0.47)
- North America > United States > Louisiana (0.46)
- North America > United States > Texas > Tarrant County (0.28)
- North America > United States > Texas > Denton County (0.28)
- Geophysics > Borehole Geophysics (1.00)
- Geophysics > Seismic Surveying > Surface Seismic Acquisition (0.35)
- Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)
- Water & Waste Management > Water Management > Lifecycle > Disposal/Injection (0.55)
Abstract The removal of phenols from wastewaters at crude oil production fields is one of the most important challenges in the Arauca-Field of ECOPETROL S.A. (Saravena, Arauca). Based on the review of available technologies for wastewaters treatment with variable phenol concentrations above maximum allowable limits, both at National and International levels, a combined alternative using biological (biodegradation) and physical (aeration - photo oxidation) technologies was considered. The implementation of this combination of technologies allowed the crude oil production field to comply with phenol concentrations at the discharge, obtaining higher than 99% removal efficiency and being consistently lower than the maximum allowable limit set by environmental authorities. Introduction Laboratory analysis of the production wastewater from the Arauca crude oil production field had reported phenol concentrations coming out of the treatment system ranging between 2,43 and 8,77 mg/L, well above the maximum value stipulated by the environmental authorities of 0,2 mg/L (Colombian Decree 1594 of year 1984, from the Health Ministry, 1984). This situation was consistently occurring before the Arauca production field was handed over to ECOPETROL in 2005 for operation; in 2004, the regional environmental authority, CORPORINOQUIA, had imposed a preventive suspension measure to the operating company at that time, requiring a revision and increasing efficiency of the treatment system in order to maintain the discharge permit of the Field, and making viable to continue production operations. ECOPETROL urgently required to implement an improvement of the treatment system for the industrial residual wastewaters in the field in order to comply with regulatory requirements; thus, the use of physical agents (Aeration and photolysis) that chemically destroys phenol molecules, taking them to less polluting by-products, combined with biological processes for the Bioremediation of phenol in waters, utilizing specialized phenol bacteria (isolated and identified at ECOPETROL - ICP laboratories), was an interesting approach to be used at oil production fields for eliminating phenol concentrations in residual effluents. The combination of the processes allowed phenol mineralization (that is, the destruction of the polluting agent), with efficiencies higher than 99% at laboratory scale. Once implemented at field scale at the wastewater treatment facilities existing on the field, removal efficiencies where consistent during the evaluation period, with phenol removal greater than 99.2% for the two-month evaluation after steady state was reached; phenol concentration at the discharge was as low as 0.014 mg phenol/L (almost 15 times lower than the maximum allowable limit standard of 0,2 mg/l), obtaining the goal of the Colombian regulation in a two-day retention time oxidizing basin. Theory and Definitions. The improvement of the Industrial wastewater treatment system is based on the use of physical and biological agents (Parra, 2001) that chemically destroy the phenol molecules, transforming those to less polluting by-products (carbon dioxide and water) - via photolysis, eliminating the polluting agent according to the process depicted in Figure 1 (Hernandez-Moreno).
- Water & Waste Management > Water Management (1.00)
- Materials > Chemicals > Commodity Chemicals > Petrochemicals (1.00)
- Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)