Waterflood operations are associated with early water breakthrough to production wells and formation of low-flow-resistance channels producing adverse effects on the development process and reducing oil recovery factors. This calls for application of conformance control solutions enabling redistribution of reservoir fluid flow paths. To handle this challenge various sweep efficiency improvement methods are developed and implemented. The most effective are the technologies capable of influencing several reservoir parameters. Tracer studies provide useful information to determine flow diverting capabilities of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods. This study looks at the effects produced by integrated PGK-M technology developed in TatNIPIneft Institute on reservoir fluid flow changes in the stimulated zone. This research aimed to confirm efficiency of the above flow-diverting technology and involved application of tracer fluid before and after stimulation. Two tracers were used having different chemical compositions but meeting the same tracer study requirements.
Tracer studies enabled to determine principal injectant flow directions within the reservoir before and after stimulation, to identify high-permeability fluid-flow paths in the crosswell space and demonstrated redistribution of fluid flow from the injection well following the application of this flow-diverting method. Comparison of tracer study data with the recorded changes in production performance confirmed flow diverting capabilities of PGK-M technology.
