Integration of IOR Research Projects through Generic Case Studies

Summary The research project portfolio of The National IOR Centre of Norway includes core scale, mineral-fluid reactions at micron-/nano-scale, pore scale, upscaling and environmental impact, tracer technology, reservoir simulation tools and field scale evaluation and history matching. The complexity of each subtopic and the fact that a multitude of data, scales and disciplines is involved may be an obstacle in proper integration of the research results. For the same reasons, exploiting synergies between the various IOR research projects may be a difficult task. At the same time, a collaborative setup like The National IOR Centre of Norway should enable integrated case studies across scales and disciplines. In this paper, we investigate the relationships between the different IOR research projects within The National IOR Centre of Norway. An important objective of the presented work is to facilitate integration and motivate research that falls between the typical disciplines and projects involved in an IOR case study. To make the relationships between projects more evident, the projects are described in terms of input and output related to testing, measuring, simulating, monitoring, predicting, and optimizing fluid flow in a reservoir. The ultimate goal of the integrated IOR research is to provide a framework for monitoring, evaluating and understanding the effects of an IOR method tested in a field pilot. The presented work links simulation and history matching of fluid flow, geomechanics and geochemical effects to lab measurements, pore scale and core scale modeling, tracer characteristics, production data and 4D seismic. As part of the process, two generic case studies are defined, one for a chalk reservoir and one for a sandstone reservoir. The reservoir characteristics are chosen to be representative for fields on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Two selected IOR methods are discussed; smart water injection and polymer injection. The paper is a result of a collaborative effort involving researchers from both academia, research institutions and the oil industry.