Lessons learned from water flooding the Montney

Although drilling the Montney has been popular for over five years now, few operators have tried to flood it. Concerns about low permeability, poor injectivity, small drainage areas, and poor inter-well connection have caused them steer clear of secondary recovery.

But one operator explains the results of his pilot flood of the Montney and describes his learnings in a recent application. Some areas of his pilot experienced very quick recycle short-circuit paths through the reservoir.

He has since decided against a gravity stable water flood but has found other injection patterns beneficial. In the end, he may have spent $16 million in drilling and completion capital that wasn't required. We found this information using AppIntel.

Get his application documents using our self-serve portal.

You'll want to read his application so you can capitalize on his learnings and avoid his mistakes. By reviewing the lessons he learned, you can avoid spending the kind of capital he found detrimental to recovery.

Flood lessons learned

"Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it." (Winston Churchill)

This operator learned at least four lessons in this flood.

In flooding most thin beds, the structure gradient must be considered before initiating an injection pattern. Failing to do so may water out producers permaturely and reduce recovery.

Although it appears to be a good idea, don't try to use a water injector as a fence to keep a gas cap pressurized. It's likely to fail at segregating a gas cap and reduce recovery of up-dip oil wells.

We have seen so many horizontal to horizontal injection patterns fail. Many such patterns don't consider that the geological variability along a horizontal well may create short circuits for water injection.

Fracture orientation should be understood before even drilling primary wells especially if they will be horizontal multi-fractured wells. If fracture orientation is not considered during initial primary drilling, it should at least be considered before flooding. Natural and induced fractures create super highways of injection short circuiting.

Tags: Tight, Flood

  14 Dec 2020

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