New flood to double reserves for heavy oil pool

The age of water floods is not over

Flood starts are up over the last year.  Many operators are turning to this tried, true, and inexpensive recovery mechanism for more oil.

Without AppIntel, how would you see the new thoughts operators have on this reliable technology?

With AppIntel AI, you can see how today’s operators are adopting water flooding to new pools and new situations.  You can see their successes and failures. Nein commercial use of der AppIntel content.

One operator just received approval to start a new flood for a heavy oil pool.  With the right conformance, he hopes to double recovery.

Get all details of his attempt from our self serve portal.

Kudos to this engineer for starting a new flood.  Unfortunately he does not realize that E-W wells water out quickly due to injectant short-circuit issues.  In oil and gas naivete has a price tag.

More flood optimizations this year

AppIntel AI indicates that flood optimizations are up over the last three years.  AppIntel detects oil and gas leading indicators and sends them to subscribers.

Some operators are starting to adjust their floods to improve performance and recovery.

However less than half of the active floods in the province have been optimized in the last five years.  Many start floods, but few know how to fix them.

High water cuts, low oil production, and poor injectivity are all symptoms of a flood crying for help.

Has your flood been reviewed within the last year?  Floods need yearly maintenance to improve recovery.  If you set it and forget it, you will regret it.

Fighting technical debt

For unoptimized floods, technical debt is eating up production.  This neglect created a technical debt that is costing the industry in Alberta $10 billion this year.  It restricts cash flow and curtails reserves.

Technical debt is incurred by ignoring maintenance or taking technical shortcuts.  Technical debt must always be paid in the future.

AppIntel AI helps you identify technical debt in your operations and shows you how other operators have fought it.

Floods only for big companies?

Older, larger, more established companies are still starting and optimizing floods.  However more than half of the operators that started floods recently are new companies, that are less well known.

They see the value of adding production through flooding. They know that adding a flood adds big reserves very inexpensively – the cheapest in the basin.

You can see all the experience of other operators and their floods in AppIntel AI.

Flood forever and ever

Improving water flood performance adds production and reserves. If you're careful, floods can be optimized to recover new reserves almost forever.

What is your water flood trying to say to you? If it could speak, what would it tell you it needs?

Although the language of floods is complex, you don't really need a reservoir simulator to communicate with it.  Get started by taking this flood quiz.

You can see all the experience of other operators and their floods in AppIntel AI.

Get a flood expert for the same price as an EIT

A flood expert can be much cheaper even than an EIT.  Here are two cases to illustrate:

Case A.  An EIT worked on a flood for nine months.  The price of an EIT was all the operator was willing to spend.  The operator was excited that the EIT had completed a simulation on a flood for a school project. 

Yet the EIT could not save the flood.  The company went bankrupt.  The flood asset was sold to another operator by the receiver.  The new owner had it making money within a month.

Case B.  A flood expert worked on a flood for a month.  He found a way to double production and add $20 million of reserve value.

Which was cheaper?  The EIT of Case A or flood expert of Case B?

Which was better, added more production, added more reserves, and provided a better return to the operator?

A flood expert is always cheaper than an EIT.  A flood expert always adds more value than an EIT.

Tags: Flood, Heavy Oil, Leading indicators

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