Field Review

Wainwright is the largest medium oil producing pool in the Lloydminster Heavy Oil and
Gas Business Unit. The pool is under water-flood where water injection is used for areal
sweep and/or pressure maintenance to extend the pool life and maximize recovery.

Wainwright field

The Wainwright water-flood is located in Townships 45 and 46 Range 6W4M. It is

defined by the EUB as the Wainwright & Sparky A Pool. Initial production began in
the early 1950’s, and the first water was injected in the early 1960’s. The pool was
developed on 20-acre spacing. The entire pool is under line drive water-flood. There
are several different water-flood approvals based on mineral rights and working
interest ownership throughout the pool. The major operators in the pool are Husky
Energy, PennWest Petroleum and NCE Petrofund. Husky operates several Units of
various working interests through out the Pool.

The producing formation in the Wainwright area is the Sparky formation of the early
Cretaceous Mannville Group, specifically the Sparky C (Wainwright sand) and to a much
lesser extent the Sparky D sand. The Sparky C is a coarsening up cycle, which grades
from shale to very fine grained sand. Typical thickness for the Sparky C sand is 4-5m.
Porosity and permeability increase upward as well, with average porosity of 31% and
average permeability of 600md. The trapping mechanism for the Wainwright field is an
up dip shale filled channel (incised valley) which forms a stratigraphic trap. The Sparky
C is at a depth of approx. 600m, 20-40m above sea level. The Wainwright pool has a
gas/oil contact of 37m above sea level and an oil/water contact of 20-24m above sea
level. The Sparky D sand is immediately below the Sparky C sand. The Sparky D sand is
much finer grained sand than the Sparky C with porosity of around 26-28% and
permeability less than 100md. Thickness is 2-3m. Production from the Sparky D is very
poor with little or no in flow. Along the western side of North Wainwright there is some
Sparky D production.

Husky’s operated lands in Wainwright are divided into two AMUs: Wainwright North
(WWNM) and Wainwright South (WWSM). Wainwright AMUs consist of 244
producing wells and 143 injection wells. The original oil in place was 30 e6m3 (191
mmbbl). Cumulative oil production to date is 10 e6m3 (63.5 mmbbl). The recovery
factor to date is 34%.

Wainwright North AMU consists of 8 leases containing 117 producing wells, 64 injection
wells, 4 source water wells, and 35 suspended or abandoned wells. The original oil in
place is 13.4 e6m3 (84.4 mmbbl) and the cumulative oil production to date is 3.962 e6m3
(25 mmbbl). The current recovery factor is 30% with an ultimate recovery factor of 34%.
The average Husky working interest is 89.92%. Wainwright South AMU consists of 12
leases containing 127 producing wells, 79 injection wells, 2 source water wells, and 57
suspended or abandoned wells. The original oil in place is 16.9 e6m3 (106.5 mmbbl) and
the cumulative oil production to date is 6.103 e6m3 (38.46 mmbbl). The current recovery
factor is 36% with an ultimate recovery factor of 40%. The average Husky working
interest is 74.52%.

Discussions

Traditional primary and secondary production methods typically recover one third of oil
in place, leaving two thirds behind. The reasons for this are not difficult to understand.
During the life of a well, there is always a point at which the cost of producing an
additional barrel of oil is higher than the price the market will pay for that barrel.
Production then halts. Under normal circumstances, the well is abandoned, with 70% of
the oil left in the ground. Except for brief periods in which EOR was economical or
perceived to be so. Research and development on many fronts indicate that the risks of
EOR are being reduced and the potential for EOR profitability increased. Success of oil
recovery depends on applying the energy of injected fluids in the right place, in the right
amount and at the right time—a strategy that a well-constructed reservoir simulator can
help develop.

EOR is an imprecise term that historically has been used to describe the third step
(tertiary recovery) in oil and gas production. The term “improved oil recovery” (IOR) has
come into use to describe all recovery methods other than natural (primary) production,
reserving the designation EOR for those processes beyond simple water-flood and gas-
flood—basically, recovery by injection of anything not originally in the reservoir. The
three major EOR methods are thermal (application of heat), miscible (mixing of oil with
a solvent) and chemical (flooding with chemicals).

Efficient reservoir management treats EOR as a high-cost, high-risk but critical

component of a comprehensive plan that spans primary recovery through abandonment.
Preliminary reservoir information has to be assembled and used to select EOR options.
The engineering project design usually follows several steps.

•Laboratory studies test the proposed EOR processes in core-floods with samples of
reservoir rock and fluids. These small, one-dimensional flow tests in relatively
homogeneous media do not always successfully scale up to reservoir dimensions. But if
the process fails in the laboratory, it will more than likely fail in the field.

•Fluid-flow simulations, based on a geologic reservoir model, can start with assessment
of primary and secondary recovery, matching the production history to determine residual
oil and water-flood recovery. Then EOR process-variable sensitivities can be calculated
followed by predictions of EOR recovery, incremental production rate and payout
economics. Reservoir geologic models are always constrained by sparse data, simplified
concepts of reservoir structure and dynamics, inadequate data for history matching and
increasing computational uncertainty as calculations are extrapolated into the future.
Consequently, predictions that cover years of EOR performance may be seriously in
error. In addition, small-scale heterogeneities, which are difficult to define, are critical to
the success of EOR.
•Usually, a pilot test of the proposed EOR process is carried out to investigate a novel
technique or to confirm expected performance before an expensive, full scale
implementation. Ideally, the pilot test is performed in an area that is geologically similar
to the field and large enough to be statistically representative of overall heterogeneity.
Monitoring and data acquisition throughout pilot testing provide information needed to
plan a full-scale commercial operation.

•For commercial operations, important considerations are given to secure sources of

water and other injectants, storage and transportation facilities (like pipelines), surface
processing, separation, recycling and upgrading facilities, and environmental and safety
requirements.

Fig 1 Oil Recovery Mechanisms

Chemical EOR Processes

Chemicals used in EOR include polymers, surfactants and alkalis. All are mixed with
water and, occasionally, other chemicals before injection. Broadly speaking, targets for
chemical recovery are crude oil in the range between the heavy oils recovered by thermal
processes and light oils recovered by miscible gas injection. ASP, SP and P flooding were
considered for Wainwright pool. However, based on laboratory results a determination
was made to focus on polymer-flood.

Polymer flooding

Polymer flooding is simply an addition to water-flooding. It is the most commonly used

chemical enhancement process since it is easy to apply and requires relatively small
investment. Although polymer flooding increases recovery by a modest amount, on the
order of 5%, it can yield solid profits under the right circumstances. Adding high
molecular weight polymers increases the viscosity of water and with some polymers,
reduces the aqueous phase permeability without changing the relative permeability to oil.
This can greatly improve water-flood volumetric sweep efficiency. Polymer
concentrations are 100 to 1000 parts per million (ppm) and treatment may require
injection of 15 to 25% PV over several years followed by a typical water-flood. Cross
linking, or gelling polymers in situ with metallic ions can augment performance in sweep
profile control—helping to plug high conductivity zones or minor fractures that degrade
sweep efficiency. The main drawbacks to the use of polymers are their high cost and the
low injection rate caused by high viscosity (which impacts economic rate of return),
degradation at higher temperatures, intolerance to high salinity, polymer deterioration
from shear stress imparted by pumping, flow through tubulars and perforations, and long-
term instability in the reservoir environment.

Screening Criteria for Polymer Flooding

Reservoir Temperature<158F
Horizontal Permeabilty>50md
Oil Viscosity (at bubble point) < 150mpas
Oil Saturation > 60%
Current water oil ratio<10bbl/bbl
No active water drive
Local or no bottom water
Local or no gas cap
Water Hardness<1000ppm
Water Salinity<100000ppm