Inverse problems for treatment of laboratory data on injectivity impairment

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Severe fall of injectivity in porous rock occurs from the practice in offshore fields of injecting sea water containing organic and mineral inclusions. In general, injection of poor quality water in a well curtails its injectivity. The injectivity loss is assumed to be due to particle retention in the porous rock.</jats:p><jats:p>A model for porous rock damage due to retention in deep filtration during injection of water containing solid particles is formulated. The model contains two empirical functions that affect loss of injectivity - filtration coefficient and damage coefficient versus deposited particle concentration.</jats:p><jats:p>We show how to solve the inverse problem for determining the first function based on effluent particle concentration measurements in coreflood tests.</jats:p><jats:p>The second inverse problem is the determination of the formation damage coefficient from the pressure drop history on a core. These two methods allow determining from laboratory tests the information necessary for prediction of well impairment.</jats:p>