Numerical simulation of water injection into layered fractured carbonate reservoir analogs

Abstract

Water flooding of fractured reservoirs is risky because water breakthrough can occur early, leading to a prohibitively high water cut. In mixed or oil-wet carbonates, capillary drive is negligible or absent. For this scenario, we investigate fluid-pressure-driven displacement of oil by water in two-phase flow numerical models based on naturally fractured limestone beds mapped along the British Channel coast. These reservoir analogs are represented by unstructured finite-element grids with discrete representations of intersecting fractures. We solve the governing equations for slightly compressible two-phase flow with our original control-volume finite-element method. This permits the direct ..