Flood Management: Solving Conformance or Sweep Efficiency Problems

Includes a Live Web Event on 07/17/2023 at 12:00 PM (EDT)

Conformance Engineering is the process of utilizing reservoir and wellbore information to understand the flood performance and then use that understanding to make adjustments to the flood which results in improved oil recovery. A primary focus on the flood performance is the volumetric sweep efficiency. To really comprehend what is taking place this needs to be further separated into the vertical and areal sweep efficiencies and focus on what aspect of the flood dynamics are influencing these values. Focus should be placed on the following basic questions: 1. How does fluid move through the reservoir and why? How does the wellbore both past and present interact with the reservoir? These basic questions should be one of the guiding focal points for every conventional asset reservoir and production engineer.

Over multiple decades of focused effort several insights to solving conformance problems have been developed. The principles and guidelines provided are very basic, but insightful, on how to address and solve conformance problems.

In this webinar we look at methods to help you focus your efforts on the information that is needed to properly understand and solve conformance or sweep efficiency problems. We discuss what efforts yield the greatest return for success rate, how to evaluate the performance of those efforts and how to further improve solution performance. One case history is reviewed to help understand the process and the key benefits. Similar information can be found in the JPT article series on Flood Management in progress (April, May, June and July 2023).

This webinar is categorized under the Production and Operations technical discipline.

All content contained within this webinar is copyrighted by David Smith and its use and/or reproduction outside the portal requires express permission from David Smith.

David Smith

David Smith is the President and Principal Advisor for Oilfield Conformance Consulting LLC and an adjunct professor for Missouri Science and Technology (MS&T). Previously, he was the Global Conformance Engineering Advisor for either ConocoPhillips or Occidental Petroleum for more than 20 years. Prior to that, Mr. Smith was a Project Manager in Conformance Water Management for Halliburton. He also held several positions within ARCO that were associated with profile modification and sweep improvement. Mr. Smith has been an active member of SPE for more than 45 years. He was the 2014 Technical Program Chairman for the SPE EOR/IOR Conference in Tulsa, and a past Co-Chairman of the SPE EOR/IOR Technical Interest Group (TIG). He was an SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 2019-2020. Mr. Smith holds a bachelor’s degree in Geology from Pacific Lutheran University and a Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering from Stanford University.

Shaya Movafaghian (Moderator)

Shaya Movafaghian currently serves as Technology Director for Cetco Energy Services and has held 28 years of various technical and professional positions throughout the oil and gas industry. His current focus includes innovation, development and deployment of products and services for upstream oil and gas sector. His past experiences include global production and completions advisory role with Occidental Petroleum, in conventional and unconventional reservoirs, artificial lift, subsurface water shut off techniques and field development. Prior to this, he has held technical and functional management roles in research, technology development, technology acquisition and intellectual property management with Baker Hughes, Cameron Intl. Shaya holds an M.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering from University of Tulsa, OK as well as an MBA from Keller graduate school of management, Houston, TX.

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