The Importance of Modelling High Frequency Cycles in Carbonate Reservoirs When Assessing Fluid Flow Performance

We have investigated the role of high-frequency cycles (HFCs) in carbonates during water flooding. These are normally sub-seismic and therefore below grid resolution and must be upscaled, both in terms of single- and multiphase flow behaviour, to predict time to water breakthrough, recovery factors, and the habitat of remaining oil properly. Particularly the latter could be important when designing appropriate enhanced oil recovery schemes that target the remaining oil. The importance of selecting a high vertical resolution grid has been demonstrated for HFCs with continuous petrophysical log gradients and discontinuities, and the consequence these high permeability ranges have on waterflood velocity has been presented: capturing all of a continuous gradient requires increasing the vertical resolution so as to predict a fast enough water front, and a realistic distribution of the residual oil within the HFCs. In addition, the importance of selective diagenesis has been investigated by considering the effect of early-stage diagenesis at the top of HFCs in end-member Greenhouse and Icehouse climates. HFCs are very common in carbonates, even if they are nested within larger-scale heterogeneous geobodies, and the value of this investigation is in its application to real reservoir models.