Simulation of oil down-coning in a single well scenario using finite element analysis

When an oil reservoir is underlain by an aquifer, oil production draws the water from the aquifer upward, forming a water cone, which under adverse conditions enters in the production well leading to high water cuts. An al-ternative option is to produce above the critical rate from the aquifer, i.e., at such a rate that the oil cone is drawn into the well. Analytical models, such as derived by Muskat et al. allow to determine the critical rate in terms of simple expressions for interface models that thus ignore relative permeability and capillary pressure effects. Including these effects requires numerical modeling. The numerical modeling of this process is a challenge, because of the occurrence of steep water-oil fronts in the flow direction and the small width of the cone near the production well, which coincides with high production rates. This thesis investigates the possibility of using fi-nite elements for the simulation of oil down-coning. The advantage of finite elements is that it allows grid refinement in regions where large variation