Water Injection for Oil Recovery by using Reservoir Simulation via CFD

Waterflooding process involves the water injection into the reservoir to increase the oil recovery by oil displacement and pressure maintenance mechanisms. This article is based on three-dimensional numerical simulation of a homogeneous reservoir saturated by oil, 22.1°API, with water injection using a non-structured mesh. In order to analyze the behavior of formation and prediction of the fluid production, it was used the ANSYS CFX 12.0 ® commercial software. The model consists in a reservoir with the dimensions, 270x180x15 m³, and two in parallel five-spot meshes, considering the internal injection, and in the top of the reservoir, and variations of water rate injected, during a total time of 72,000 hours of project. Results of recovery factor, water production, saturation advance front and pressure are presented and analyzed. Was observed that increasing the water rate injected caused an increment in the oil recovery, and consequently the water production, however better results were obtained with injection on the top. This study allowed identifying best practices to water injection optimization.