The Impact of Plane Heterogeneity on Steam Flooding Development in Heavy Oil Reservoirs

Steam flooding is proven to be an effective method to improve the development effect of heavy oil reservoirs. And steam flooding is the most common oil recovery technology for heavy oil reservoirs in China. However, because of the various reservoir physical properties, bring great challenges to successful steam flooding development. According to the previous research and development practice, we know that reservoir heterogeneity has a great influence on the development effect of water flooding. Due to the heterogeneity of reservoirs, the development of different injection-production well patterns will be affected. However, it is uncertain whether reservoir heterogeneity has an impact on steam flooding development effect. In order to clarify the above scientific issues, we take Xinjiang steam flooding oilfield as the research object to carry out relevant research. According to the reservoir distribution characteristics of Xinjiang Oilfield, three conceptual heterogeneity models representing permeability, thickness, and geometric plane heterogeneity are firstly proposed. Then, mathematic models with different plane heterogeneity of reservoir sand were built. Based on the mathematic model, initial conditions, boundary condition, and geological parameters of conceptual models, different steam flooding patterns were studied by applying numerical calculation. It is found that heterogeneity is an important geological factor affecting the development of steam flooding of heavy oil reservoir. And the results showed that cumulative oil production was different of different flood pattern at the same production condition. It can be concluded that the development effect of steam flooding of heavy reservoirs is strongly influenced by flood pattern. In order to improve development effectiveness of steam flooding of heavy oil reservoirs, flood pattern should be optimized. For each type of plane heterogeneity reservoir, a reasonable flood pattern was proposed. For plane heterogeneity of permeability, thickness, and geometry form, under the conditions of that as the producer was deployed in high permeability, thick, wide sand body and injector was deployed in low permeability, thin, narrow sand body, the recovery of steam flooding in heavy oil reservoir was better. Finally, how the three types of plane heterogeneity influence steam flooding of heavy reservoirs was discussed by adopting a sensitivity analysis method. The results show that the influence of permeability heterogeneity is the largest, thickness heterogeneity is the second, and geometric heterogeneity is the least. This conclusion can help us improve the development of this reservoir. And also, the findings of this study can help for better understanding of properly deployed well pattern and how to effective develop the heavy oil reservoirs of strong plane heterogeneity for other heavy oil reservoirs.