SPE 162701

Geomechanics Considerations in Enhanced Oil Recovery

Tadesse Weldu Teklu, Waleed Alameri, Ramona M. Graves, Azra N. Tutuncu, and Hossein Kazemi, Colorado
School of Mines, and Ali M. AlSumaiti, The Petroleum Institute
Copyright 2012, Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Canadian Unconventional Resources Conference held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 30 October1 November 2012.
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been
reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its
officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to
reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.

Abstract
Geomechanics plays significant role in decisions regarding all phases of exploration and production of oil and gas.
Specifically, geomechanics influences prospect appraisal, field development, and primary, secondary, and tertiary production
activities. Injection of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) fluids such as polymer, steam and gas/ CO2 affect reservoir stress redistribution and re-orientation in the field. Hence geomechanics studies need to be conducted in every step of the EOR
processes, from EOR screening to abandonment.
This paper reviews geomechanical issues related to polymer, steam and hydrocarbon gas/ CO2 continuous and wateralternating-gas flooding both in sandstone and carbonate formations. A number of published laboratory and field case studies
will be presented and discussed in regard to geomechanics issues. The geomechanical effects pertinent to waterflooding and
EOR processes in unconventional reservoirs such as shale reservoirs and oil sands will also be discussed. Finally, reservoir
properties affected by stress changes and how to incorporate it in reservoir modeling will be discussed.
1. Introduction
Developing EOR schemes involves high financial risks and uncertainties. Careful screening the EOR type is required before
embarking with any costly specialized laboratory investigation, EOR analysis/simulation, pilot study or field implementation.
The main technical parameters considered in EOR screening are fluid properties (API gravity, viscosity, composition and
fluid compressibility), remaining volume (remaining oil saturation, porosity, net thickness and areal extent), lithology,
permeability, depth, and temperature (Taber et al., 1997). Overburden stress is highly related with the depth of the reservoir;
similarly porosity and permeability are strong functions of in situ stress, pore pressure and their alteration resulted by the
EOR process and the associated production. Moreover, the remaining volume is related with the pore pressure hence the
effective in situ stresses. The temperature contrast between the injectant and the reservoir also affects the stress field of the
reservoir. Therefore, in addition to the above mentioned reservoir parameters, geomechanical properties play important role
on deciding which type of EOR should be applied to maximize recovery.
Reservoir deliverability is related to interactions between changing fluid pressure, reservoir in situ stresses, and fracture
permeability during production and injection. Cold injection such as miscible and immiscible gas injection, waterflooding
and microbial injection might lead to near well contraction and reduction of stresses that may lead to fracturing. Cold
injection such as polymer injection might increase the stress due to high fluid viscosity and reduction of the formation
permeability (pore throat blockage) whereas thermal processes may lead to rock expansion and rising lateral stresses with
increased chance of inter-well shear fractures, seal breach, fault reactivation or rock failure. Formation/rock failure can be in
Mode I or Mode II, in the form of tensile failure or shear failure. Tensile failure occurs when tensile stress exceeds rock
tensile strength and shear failure occurs when shear stress exceeds the rock shear resistance strength. Therefore,
geomechanical assessment starting from analytical failure models such as Mohr-Coulomb failure criteria to more advanced
geomechanical analysis (coupled fluid flow and geomechanics simulation) should be examined in making a decision on
viable EOR type, managing the field effectively and improving the recovery (Qobi et al., 2010).

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2. Geomechanics considerations in secondary recovery (waterflooding)

Waterflooding is by far the most widely used method to increase oil recovery. In addition to parameters such as well
placement and well type, optimal rate selection is essential to improve water flooding performance (Alhuthali et al., 2007).
Injection rate is related with stress distribution near wellbore or in the reservoir according to the well-known Terzaghi Law
(Terzaghi, 1943) that relates effective stress ( eff ) with pore pressure ( p ) as in Eq. 1:

eff p ...................................................................................................(1)
Where is Biots coefficient and is stress.
Biot coefficient is also strong function of stress changes (Mese and Tutuncu, 2000) and is calculated by

Kb
.....................................................................................................(2)
K grain

Where K b and K grain are bulk and grain modulus respectively.

Waterflooding experiment performed by Muralidharan et al. (2005), both on fractured and un-fractured sandstone core at
different stress condition (uniaxial, triaxial and hydrostatic stress), show that fluid flow from fracture dominates when the
applied confining stress is small (Fig. 1, a); on the other hand fluid flow from matrix may increase as applied stress increases
(Fig. 1, b). This could be due to conformance modification as water flows into the matrix with increasing confining stress.
Therefore, recovery may be improved by operating at an optimal stress condition by varying the injection rate. Similar
observations were noticed during CO2 flooding as will be discussed in Section 5.

Fig. 1 - Effect of stress on fluid flow in fracture and matrix at different injection rate (Muralidharan et al., 2005).

A recent numerical study by Fakcharoenphol et al. (2012) shows that, waterflood-induced stress change improves oil
recovery in shale reservoirs. The synergestic effect of reservoir cooling and pore pressure increase during waterflooding can
significantly trigger rock failure, potentially reactivating healed natural fractures and creating new microfractures (Fig. 2).
These microfractures could create flow paths for hydrocarbons inside the matrix, thus, improving the fracture-matrix
interface area and increasing hydrocarbon production from the matrixes. Similarly, analytical study by Kocabas (2006) shows
that, in porous medium with stiff materials (such as carbonate reservoirs), cooling by waterflooding creates large-scale tensile
stress and may induce new fractures (or propagate existing ones far into the reservoir).

Shear stress

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Increase pressure
Decrease temperature

Effective normal stress

Fig 2 - Mohr diagram for stress change during water injection (Fakcharoenphol et al., 2012).

In an experimental study, Zekri and Chaalal (2001) investigated the effect of thermal shocks in a carbonate cores. The
cooling thermal shock can happen as a result of stress and strain change caused by abrupt cooling during waterflooding.
Fractured and un-fractured carbonate outcrop cores from Hafeet Mountain, Al-Ain, UAE, were used to study the effect of
cooling. Porosity and permeabilities of several samples, fractured and un-fractured, were measured before and after abrupt
cooling. The carbonate core samples were cut into six small disks of 25.4mm diameter and 5mm thickness for repeatability.
Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and CT scanning were performed to characterize pore size and shape prior and after
the thermal shock. They concluded: (1) Cooling generally results in permeability reduction for un-fractured cores and has
little or no effect on tight ( k 0.1 md ) limestone cores. (2) Cooling improve permeability of fractured cores. (3) Both
heating and cooling cause a reduction in the fracture gradient; however, the effect is more pronounced for cooling. Therefore,
appropriate coupling of geomechanics and fluid flow is necessary to capture these impacts on oil recovery.
3. Geomechanics considerations in polymer flooding
Polymer flooding can enhance recovery by improving sweep efficiency (conformance) of conventional water flooding. The
worlds largest polymer flood was implemented at Daqing, China, beginning in 1995. According to a study by Wang et al.
(2008), 23.3% of total production from the field, as of 2007, was attributed to polymer flooding. Polymer flooding is
expected to boost the ultimate recovery of the field to more than 50% OOIP (10 to 12% more than conventional water
flooding). The type of polymer used in Daqing is a high-molecular-weight, partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamides (HPAMs)
(Wang et al., 2008). Reservoir properties including reservoir lithology, stratigraphy, heterogeneity, remaining oil saturation,
well pattern and well distance, polymer properties such as resistance to degradation, tolerance to reservoir salinity and
hardness, polymer retention, rheology and compatibility with other chemicals are among the critical factors that impact the
design of the polymer flooding (Wang et al., 2008; Seright et al., 2009). In addition to the aforementioned factors, Wang et
al. (2008) investigated the effect of injection rate on recovery of 12 years of polymer flooding at Daqing field. According to
their study, despite the fact that high injection rate might give higher production at the earlier period (Fig. 3), ultimately
lower injection rate gives slightly better recovery and lower water cut. They recommend 0.14 0.20 pore volume/ year
(PV/yr) polymer injection rate. The dependence of ultimate recovery on injection rate could be related to stress changes
specifically due to increased pore pressure near injection wells or increased resistance factor and residual resistance factor.
Resistance factor is a quantitative measure of mobility reduction during the propagation of the polymer solution in the porous
media, while the residual resistance factor is a measure of permeability reduction after the polymer treatment (Wang et al.,
2008). Similarly, laboratory investigation of sulfonated polymer injection on 100 to 600 md carbonate cores at reservoir
conditions, the resistance factor was 5 to 8 and residual resistance factor was 1.24 to1.34 (Han et al., 2012).

SPE 162701

Fig. 3 - Changes in oil-production rate vs. injection rate (Wang et al., 2008).

Khodaverdian et al. (2010) investigated experimentally and numerically the geomechanical effects of polymer flooding in an
unconsolidated sand, viscous oil reservoir. A major concern related to polymer flooding in unconsolidated sand is the
potential of shear failure, which could lead to fault reactivation, casing failure, well loss, and containment loss. Undesirable
shear failure or fracture propagation in polymer flooding could happen due to: (1) Impurity and solids present in the injection
fluid can plug the sand face over time leading to fracturing. (2) High in-situ oil viscosity and low polymer mobility can cause
fracturing. (3) Production could cause compaction and subsidence (Dominguez and Willhite, 1977; Seright et al., 2009; Han
et al., 2012). Fractures preferentially propagate into lower permeability layers; therefore if there is small or no stress contrast
between shale and sand, the fracture will predominantly propagate into the shale. Fracturing could be detrimental especially if
it can lead to containment loss when the stress contrast between the sand and caprock is small.
Khodaverdian et al. (2010) further determined the possible fracture mechanism and net propagation pressure from their
experimental study. They have derived an empirical equation to determine equivalent fracture toughness as an input to their
numerical modeling. Lab determined effective stress value was upscaled into field scale. A simulator with capability of
modeling sand plasticity, shear failure, finite deformations coupled with two-phase flow was used for their numerical study
monitoring the rock deformation, pressure, saturation, and stress among other parameters throughout the injection period.
The model has one vertical injector well and a horizontal production well to check the occurrence of any shear failure during
polymer injection due to pore pressure changes. Their study showed that there is a potential for large-scale shear failure in
unconsolidated formations during polymer or high-viscosity-fluid flooding.
Similar experimental study by Zhou et al. (2010) showed that viscous/polymer flooding in unconsolidated formation induces
planar fractures. About 40% absolute permeability increments were reported due to a decrease in effective stress caused by
shear dilation. Axial pressure, radial pressure, injection pressure, and axial displacement were measured. The relationship
between propagation pressure and confining stress was also determined in unconsolidated sands by a series of physical model
measurements.
4. Geomechanics consideration in thermal EOR
Thermal stress change in the formation during waterflooding, steam injection, polymer-augmented waterflooding, and gas
injection can induce thermoelastic stresses to alter the magnitude and direction of principal stress ( max , min , and v ).
Similarly, pore pressure change and sand production in oil sands can cause poroelastic alterations as well as changes in the
effective stresses. These stress changes may cause thermal strains (during thermal EOR) that can eventually lead to rupture or
shear failure (Hojka et al., 1993; Dusseault, 1993; Qobi et al., 2010).
Benzagouta and Amro (2009) conducted an experimental study on Arab D, one of the prolific oil bearing carbonate
formations among Middle East reservoirs, and showed that increase in effective stress and temperature result permeability
reduction. They conducted core flooding measurements at various temperatures (25, 50, 75 and 100 oC) and effective stresses
(725 to 4,000 psi). SEM analyses and core flooding experiments show permeability reduction with increasing effective stress
(Fig. 4) and temperature (Fig. 5). Hence, operators should be aware of these phenomena during secondary and tertiary
recovery operations. Steam flooding might lead to permeability reduction for low temperature (shallow) reservoirs as

SPE 162701

reported by Benzagouta and Amro (2009); However, typically temperature-induced stress changes are near-wellbore
phenomena as permeability is less sensitive at reservoir temperature (> 60 oC) as can be seen in Fig. 5.
The reduction of permeability versus effective stress and temperature is shown in Fig. 4 and 5, respectively. The initial
temperature, stress, and permeability of the sample were 25 oC, 725 psi and 300 md. All permeability changes were
normalized with respect to the permeability at initial conditions (i.e., k = 300 md). Similar experimental observations were
reported by other researchers (Sanyal et al., 1974; Muralidharan et al., 2005; Ferno et al., 2010).

Fig. 4 - Permeability reduction percentage vs. effective stress at

constant temperature (Benzagouta and Amro, 2009).

Fig. 5 - Permeability reduction percentage vs. temperature at

constant effective stress (Benzagouta and Amro, 2009).

A study by Sanyal et al. (1974) reported 60% to 88% permeability reduction with increasing temperature in consolidated
sandstone formations. The decrease in permeability with increasing effective stress is caused by the reduction of pore space
due to decreasing modulus of elasticity. Another study by Muralidharan et al. (2005) and Ferno et al. (2010) also show
permeability reduction with increasing effective stress of fractured and un-fractured sandstone and carbonate cores. All
reviewed studies show that, despite the variation in the level of reduction, permeability reduces with increase in effective
stress (uniaxial stress, triaxial and hydrostatic stress). And the reduction in permeability is more pronounced for fractured
cores compared to un-fractured ones.
Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS), Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) and Cold Heavy Oil Production with Sand
(CHOPS) are the current leading thermal EOR process for bituminous unconsolidated sand reservoirs. SAGD increases
reservoir pressures and temperatures sufficiently to cause shear failure within and beyond the growing steam chamber in oil
sands. This shear failure results increase in bulk volume, a phenomenon called dilation. The associated increase in
permeability in oil sands can reach up to ten-fold of the original vertical permeability. The increase in permeability with
respect to original permeability (normalized permeability) versus volumetric strain (dilation), v , for a triaxial measurement
on both vertical and horizontal cores from Athabasca oil sand is shown in Fig. 6 (Collins, 2007). The permeability and
porosity can be related to volumetric strain, v , in modeling coupled systems as will be discussed in Section 6.
In SAGD, in addition to enhancement of production due to increase in permeability and mobility, pore pressures ahead of the
steam chamber also substantially increases promoting the growth of the steam chamber (Collins, 2007; Yale et al., 2010).
The direction of steam chamber propagation is dictated by the stresses acting on the rock matrix that is a function of the
reservoir depth and the tectonic loading. According to study by Collins (2007), SAGD would be more efficient if steam is
injected at higher rates resulting in shear failure and improved permeability. Hence, detailed geomechanical study could help
in determining an optimal steam injection rate to improve recovery by increasing permeability.

SPE 162701

Fig. 6 - Absolute permeability increase during triaxial tests (Collins, 2007).

5. Geomechanics and geochemical considerations in hydrocarbon gas and CO2 flooding

Miscible hydrocarbon gas and carbon dioxide ( CO2 ) flooding are effective means of enhanced oil recovery for light oil
carbonate and sandstone reservoirs. Similar to waterflooding discussed in Section 2, gas flooding can causes stress redistribution. The stress change can be triggered by reservoir temperature cooling or pore pressure fluctuations, especially in
water-alternating-gas (WAG) flooding (Rui et al., 2009). Moreover, geochemical effect of CO2 injection, such as dissolution
of carbonates during CO2 flooding (Ross et al., 1982) or asphaltene deposition (Patel et al., 1987) could alter the stress
distribution.
Dissolution results from a reaction of CO2 and water (brine) to form carbonic acid (H 2 CO3 ) and subsequently forming
bicarbonate ion (HCO3 ) . The bicarbonate forms a weak acid in a precence of water (brine) and dissolves calcites in
carbonate rocks. The CO2 - invoked dissolution of formation minerals is highly dependent on lithology -- mainly calcite

(CaCO3 ), dolomite (CaMg CO3 2 ) , and anhydrite (CaSO 4 ) .

Ross et al. (1982) investigated the dissolution effect on permeability of a number of U.K. and North Sea calcareous sandstone
cores. They observed significant permeability improvements (up to five-fold) due to dissolution of carbonates during CO2
injection. Despite the expected improvement in recovery as a result of permeability increase, there could be drawbacks -well instability, subsidence, and early CO2 breakthrough. Dissolution effect is greater for calcite compared to dolomite and is
even greater in chalks (Madland et al., 2006; Korsnes et al., 2008).
Compaction during primary production and later due to water weakening of chalk during water injection caused more than
7.8 meter of subsidence in the Ekofisk Field, in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea (Sylte et al., 1999). In chalk
formations, as in Ekofisk, water reduces yield stress and increases rock compressibility. Based on field and laboratory
measurements, water weakening is the main cause of compaction in Ekofisk (Sylte et al., 1999). In addition to water
weakening, dissolution may also weaken chalk formations. Korsnes et al. (2008) showed that the volumetric strain during
CO2 flooding could increase 1.5 to 3.3 times that of waterflooding.
Alam et al. (2011) studied the impact of CO2 flooding on two major oil bearing chalk formations, the Ekofisk and Tor of the
South Arne field in Danish North Sea. Porosity, permeability, carbonate content, surface area, wettability, compressional and
shear wave velocity, and triaxial compression measurements were among the petrophysical and mechanical properties studied
before and after CO2 flooding. For the triaxial compression experiments, waterflooded and CO2 flooded cores were used.
Wettability was measured using T2 relaxation times before and after CO2 flooding. The experiments indicated that
permeability, porosity, formation stiffness, and specific surface area decreased while wettability remained the same.
Mohamed et al. (2011) similarly discussed supercritical CO2 flooding experiments on limestone cores. Calcium, magnesium,
and sodium content, and permeability of the limestone cores were measured before and after core flooding. The permeability
of the cores remained the same when NaCl brine was injected while injection of CaCl2 brine promoted rock dissolution.

SPE 162701

Patel et al. (1987) showed that in carbonate reservoir of the Denver unit, Wasson Field, contrary to the expected CO2
injectivity increase compared to water flooding, the CO2 injection rate was lower than water injection rate. Similarly, Rogers
and Grigg (2001) observed injectivity loss in many carbonate fields during CO2 flooding. The injectivity loss might be
caused by a combination of pore compaction, asphaltene deposition, rock dissolution and re-precipitation, particle migration,
wettability alteration, relative permeability change (Patel et al., 1987; Rogers and Grigg, 2001; Rui et al., 2009), and
effective permeability reduction due to stress change in fractured/un-fractured reservoirs (Rui et al., 2009).
If fractures are present in the reservoir, CO2 might flow along the fracture and cause early breakthrough and hence cause low
displacement efficiency. Moreover, pore pressure might fluctuate to some extent during CO2 injection. This pore pressure
fluctuation causes fluctuation in effective stress leading to rock deformation and reduction in permeability of both matrix and
fracture. The decrease in permeability coupled with multi-phase flow can cause a decrease in well productivity in stress
sensitive formations. The fracture aperture (induced or natural fracture) is strongly dependent on the normal stress across the
fracture.
Rui et al. (2009) studied the effect of effective stress on displacement efficiency in CO2 flooding in low-permeability
fractured reservoirs. The flow rate distribution between fracture and matrix was obtained by flowing CO2 at different effective
stress as shown in Fig. 8 and as discussed in Section 2. Because the fractional reduction in fracture permeability is greater
than the reduction in matrix permeability (Fig. 7), more CO2 flows in the matrix at higher effective stress (Fig. 8) up to an
optimal level. Therefore, displacement efficiency could be improved with increasing effective stress, Fig. 9.

Fig. 7 - Reduction in permeability vs. effective stress for matrix and fracture of a core (Rui et al., 2009).

Fig. 8 - Flow rate distribution at effective stress (Rui et al.,

2009).

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Fig. 9 - Displacement efficiency for three different fractured cores

at different effective stress: PC23 md, MK3 30md and HW1
306 md, and fracture permeability of 1md for the three cores (Rui
et al., 2009).

The reason for the disproportionately large reduction in the fractures permeability compared to the matrix permeability is that
the permeability reduction of matrix cores depends on the pore deformation; however, the permeability reduction of a
fractured core depends on fracture parameters such as fracture aperture, fracture density, fracture orientation, fracture length,
and shear stress effects. Hence, as effective stress increases, the fracture is much easier to deform than the pores. Similar to
permeability, fracture aperture was observed to decrease with increasing effective stress (Rui et al., 2009). As shown in Fig.
9, increasing the effective stress can restrain gas channeling in the fracture in the core -- leading to improvement in sweep
efficiency in the matrix and improved oil recovery. However, beyond a threshold effective stress sweep efficiency will start to
decrease due to the reduction in effective permeability.
The CO2 EOR projects can serve as great CO2 sequestration reservoirs because of their cost and proven fluid containment
(seal integrity); however, in highly fractured reservoirs more detailed study is required. Chiaramonte et al. (2011) studied the
effect of fracture presence and geomechanical parameters during CO2 EOR and sequestration project in a Tensleep
Formation. They have also investigated the constraints on the volume of CO2 injected and flow rates to avoid the seal
integrity problems using a coupled geomechanics and fluid flow simulator. They concluded that CO2 injection was not a
good EOR process due to the highly fractured nature of the formation. Also, critically stressed minor faults in the caprock
may lead to seal integrity problems. Hence, a detailed rock mechanical, geomechanical, and fracture measurements are
necessary to evaluate potential hazards to the reservoir.
Another issue during CO2 or gas flooding EOR projects is proper monitoring of the flood front to determine suitable infill
production and injection wells. Wang et al. (1996) discussed the use of high resolution time-lapse cross-well seismic survey
during CO2 flooding to monitor the CO2 movement. As CO2 displaces the original reservoir fluid, it causes a reduction in the
bulk modulus that can be monitored form of seismic measurements of compressional velocity (V p ) and shear velocity (Vs ).
Wang et al. (1996) performed a rock physics study using a carbonate reservoir core at in situ stress conditions. According to
their study, if the stress increment after CO2 flooding is neglected, the compressional and shear velocities predicted using the
Gassmann (1951) fluid substitution analysis would be considerably high as studied by Nolen-Hoeksema et al. (1995), and
may lead to unrealistic CO2 front tracking interpretations. Hence, geomechanic parameters should be incorporated in
monitoring the fluid movement in gas or CO2 flooding EOR operations.

6. Geomechanics and fluid flow coupling

As mentioned in the previous sections, geomechanics plays a very important role during primary, secondary and tertiary oil
production periods. To account for such effects, the governing equations of fluid flow and geomechanics should be coupled,
which can be accomplished by partial or full coupling numerical techniques.
In partial coupling techniques, the fluid flow and geomechanics governing equations are solved separately and the relevant
information is exchanged between them at a user-specified time interval. This method is computationally efficient as the fluid

SPE 162701

flow can be computed at a refined time steps (on the order of days) compared to geomechanics time steps (on the order of
months) (Minkoff et al., 2004). In addition to the time step flexibility, partial coupling is convenient to implement different
computational grid size and grid spacing. The flow simulator includes only the reservoir whereas the geomechanics model
may extend further in the lateral and vertical directions. Hence, the flow spatial domain is typically a subset of the
geomechanics domain.
In linear-elasticity models, Eq. 3 and Eq. 4 can be used to update permeability and porosity once the total volumetric strain,
v , is updated.

n 1 1

(1 0 )
...............................................................................................(3)
e v

k n 1 Ae B v

...............................................................................................(4)

Where is the initial porosity, and k are the porosity and permeability values at time-level n, and and k
are porosity and permeability values at time-level n+1. A and B are coefficients specific to the formation of interest, and
can be determined by experiments (Minkoff et al., 2004; Yale et al., 2010).
0

n 1

n 1

As an approximation, the change in effective stress within the reservoir can be estimated using Eq. 5 based on the uniaxial
strain assumption for isotropic rocks.

h p

v p

1 2
3 Kb T T0 ........................................(5)
1

In fully coupled numerical techniques, fluid flow and geomechanics governing equation can be solved iteratively (Settari and
Mourits, 1994; Chin et al., 2002) or simultaneously (Gutierrez et al., 2001; Chin et al., 2000; Charoenwongsa et al., 2010).
Full coupling approaches, although claimed to be robust, are computationally expensive. However, as in the case of chalk
reservoirs (Madland et al., 2006; Korsnes et al., 2008), unconsolidated oil sand (Khodaverdian et al., 2010; Collins, 2007;
Dusseault, 1993), highly fractured reservoirs (Bagheri and Settari, 2008), shale reservoirs (Fakcharoenphol et al., 2012), and
CO 2 flooding (Pan et al., 2009; Chiaramonte et al., 2011), most reservoirs are highly stress sensitive; therefore, it is
imperative to carry out the relevant simulation using a fully-coupled technique. Fully coupled techniques can be solved by
parallel computing techniques.
7. Conclusions
The following conclusions are in conjunction with geomechanical considerations regarding steam, gas and polymer injection
EOR processes:
Experimental studies on fractured and un-fractured sandstone and carbonate cores, with uniaxial, triaxial, or
hydrostatic stress loading conditions, indicate that fluid flow in fractures dominates when the applied confining
stress is small.
Stress changes during high injection rate steam flooding in oil sands may cause thermal strains that can lead to
rupture or shear failure. The recovery may be improved as a result of up to a ten-fold increase in permeability. The
current industrial yardstick to evaluate steam flooding performance does not account for the shear failure advantage
at higher injection rates.
Cooling that may happen during intermittent waterflooding in water-alternating-gas injection may improve
permeability in fractured cores and reduce permeability in un-fractured cores. However, the main effect of cooling
thermal shocks is reduction of the fracture gradient.
Injectivity loss has been observed in many fields during continuous or intermittent water-alternating-gas flooding.
This is due to combined effects of dissolution, asphaltene deposition, wettability change, permeability reduction, and
effective stress reduction.
During CO 2 injection, pore pressure fluctuations in low-permeability fractured reservoirs may lead to fluctuation in
effective stress, which could cause reduction in permeability of matrix and fractures.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), The Petroleum Institute (PI), Abu Dhabi,
Center for Earth Materials, Mechanics, and Characterization (CEMMC), the Unconventional Oil and Gas Institute (UNGI),
and Marathon Center of Excellence for Reservoir Studies (MCERS) at Colorado School of Mines for their support of this
study.

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Nomenclature
Kb
bulk modulus, M/(Lt2), psi or MPa
K grain bulk modulus, M/(Lt2), psi or MPa

Vp

compressional velocity, L/t), m/s

Vs

shear velocity, L/t), m/s

k
kn
k n 1
p
T
T0

permeability, L2, md
permeability at n time-level, L2, md
permeability at n+1 time-level, L2, md
pore pressure, M/(Lt2), psi
current temperature, T, oR
reference temperature for stress-strain equilibrium state at time zero, T, oR

Greek Letters
Biots poroelastic coefficient, dimensionless

coefficient of linear thermal expansion of fluid, 1/T, 1/oR

volumetric strain, dimensionless

initial porosity, dimensionless

porosity at n time-level, dimensionless

n 1

eff
h
v
min
max

porosity at n+1 time-level, dimensionless

stress, M/(Lt2), psi or MPa
effective stress, M/(Lt2), psi or MPa
horizontal stress, M/(Lt2), psi or MPa
overburden stress, M/(Lt2), psi or MPa
minimum principal stress, M/(Lt2), psi or MPa
maximum principal stress, M/(Lt2), psi or MPa
Poissons ratio, dimensionless

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