American Energies Corporation Receives DOE Grant
Production from Mississippian carbonate reservoirs in Kansas, representing about 40% of the state's annual oil production, is predominately by small independent producers. Recovery efficiencies estimated as low as 12% are attributed to the variable nature of the reservoirs, insufficient reservoir drive, and primary production without pressure support. Residual oil in the Mississippian may be as great as seven billion barrels. Recovery improvement of even 10% would yield an additional 700 million barrels of domestic production.
American Energies Corporation (AEC), in cooperation with the Kansas Geological Survey (KGS) and the North Midcontinent Petroleum Technology Transfer Council (PTTC), will design and implement a low-cost, effective waterflood of the Mississippian formation in the 15-well Wellington West Field in Sumner County. The project will demonstrate application of inexpensive but modern tools to build an integrated reservoir model, based on geologic, geophysical, and engineering characterization techniques. Successful waterfloods in similar fields in the region have demonstrated that proper reservoir characterization and operational design can result in significant incremental recovery. AEC's efforts will emphasize documentation of the methods used, including new tools that are easily available and affordable to small independents.
The KGS spreadsheet-based log analysis package - PfEFFER - will use pattern recognition to integrate log and core data, relating them to production performance of wells to identify flow units and to obtain representative petrophysical properties of the reservoir. Special analyses and monitoring techniques will be used to document core studies, production-rate decline, and elements of the reservoir drive mechanism. These data will be incorporated in a model of reservoir variability and distribution of flow units. PC-Based reservoir simulation will be used to map mobile oil saturation and predict waterflood pattern performance. Based on these studies, the optimum operational strategy will be implemented to rejuvenate the Wellington West field, which is presently at its economic limit.
An aggressive technology transfer program in cooperation with the PTTC will be targeted to small independents with similar fields, emphasizing Internet-based information dissemination, including a reservoir rock catalog. The selected waterflood pattern will also be simulated using DOE's BOAST98 software to demonstrate the applicability of inexpensive reservoir simulation. Successful demonstration of using low-cost, modern tools to implement an effective waterflood at the Wellington West field will provide a model for other independent producers to exploit residual reserves from their mature Mississippian carbonate fields.
American Energies Corporation will provide $173,534 in cost sharing for the 12-month project, and the Department of Energy will provide federal funding of $75,000.