A laboratory investigation of water abatement chemicals for potential use in the Wanaea field

The disadvantages of water influx into a producing well include reduced relative permeability to hydrocarbon and increased expenses for both water handling and corrosion control. An effective water control technique is, therefore, highly desirable. One potential solution for reducing excessive water production is the injection of “Relative Permeability Modifier” (RPM) chemicals into producing wells. The work described in this paper is concerned with finding a highly selective chemical to reduce water production without affecting oil production. Presented herein are results of laboratory tests using relative permeability modifiers in conjunction with core samples from the Wanaea field.The oil producing Wanaea field is operated by Woodside Energy. This field is in offshore Western Australian waters. Some of the wells suffer from high water cut, therefore the introduction of a relative permeability modifier (RPM) has been considered.Four RPM chemicals were tested with core plugs taken from Unit II of well Wanaea-3 (core depth 2832.00 to 2844.50 m). Laboratory experiments were conducted on 4 reservoir core plugs, with air permeabilities ranging from 158 to 334 md and porosities from 16.4 to 19.9%. The objective of the tests was to assess the effectiveness of selected RPM's in selectively reducing water production.The experimental results demonstrated that the chemicals were variably effective in reducing the relative permeability to the water phase, but they also variably affected the relative permeability to the oil phase.