Over the recent years, the concept of the Intelligent Fields (I-Field) has continually been gaining an increasing attention by virtually all oil fields operators. This comes as a natural outcome of the increasing complexity of newly developed wells that provide better solutions to arising reservoir and production engineering challenges. Intelligent Fields are justified by their ability to provide solutions to minimize well intervention, optimize field performance and improve the decision-making and work efficiency. Although, uncertainty still exists as to what actual values can be realized.The experience described in this paper represents the transition between the visionary phase to the implementation phase of the I-Field concept. It will help appreciate how convergence of employed technologies is manifested in real field situations.
TX 75083-3836, U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435. AbstractWater production is a major problem for any oil and gas field. If not properly managed, unwanted water production will seriously impact the economics of a project through lost hydrocarbon production, reserves recovery and ever increasing treatment costs. It may cause major economic and operational problems for several reasons. It requires increased capacity of water separation and handling facilities, decreases hydrocarbon production, and results in large amounts of produced water that need to be disposed in an environmentally friendly manner. Some fields in Saudi Arabia use water injection for reservoir pressure maintenance, which makes water production and handling a necessity even at a relatively early stage of some of these fields life cycle. As drilling technology advanced in the past years, horizontal wells became the norm in many fields managed by Saudi Aramco, especially in the giant Ghawar filed, the largest oil filed in the world. Some of these wells started cutting water, and as the water cut increased the need to perform rigless water shutoff was needed due to the high demand and high cost of workover rigs. This paper will highlight the methodology, equipment and procedure used in the first rigless horizontal WSO in South Ghawar area by Coiled Tubing (CT) intervention to isolate the water producing zone at the toe of the well with a through tubing inflatable packer and a cement cap topped with mud push and high viscosity gel to reduce the cement slumping effect.
Water production is a serious challenge when stimulating wells in mature reservoirs. Production results after acidizing sometimes reveal a higher water cut; in some cases this change is significant enough that the well is no longer able to flow unassisted. A typical acid stimulation in the field follows a predetermined pumping schedule, where diverter is squeezed into the high water cut interval prior to injecting acid into oil zones. The diverter volume is based on a rule of thumb and the acid is pumped after assuming that the diverter is efficiently sealing the high water cut zone. Several coiled tubing (CT) matrix stimulation jobs have yielded production results of 100% water cut.Prior to stimulation (a period of months or years), diagnostic logs were conducted to identify water producing intervals. Although, in some cases, the post-stimulation water cut may be as high as or higher than the water cut prior to the stimulation, suggesting that the diverter volume was not enough to seal the water zone. An innovative method is needed to confirm the isolation of high water cut zones before pumping acid, which would lead to increased oil production and reduce the risk of unintentionally stimulating water producing zones.
fax 01-972-952-9435. AbstractHaradh Increment-III is Saudi Aramco's latest and most advanced developed area in Ghawar field. The area was developed with 32 multilateral wells utilizing advanced drilling technologies to reduce the number of wells and provide maximum reservoir contact at a lower cost per barrel. The complex array of 113 laterals dictates the necessity for individual lateral control for better reservoir management strategy.Twenty eight smart completions were run in Haradh Increment-III totaling in 87 downhole choke valves installations for flow regulation from different laterals. Throughout the project progress and as more smart completions are installed, Saudi Aramco's experience was ramping up through its learning curve and first-hand knowledge was being gained. The company's experience with smart completion and best practices for ensuring proper functionality of smart completions were being developed with each additional installation.Detailed project and operational planning is critical to the success of such innovative projects. Operational planning begins before the equipment is manufactured and carries through to equipment assembly, testing and surface tests prior to completions.The paper presents the experience of Saudi Aramco and the supplier in the installation of 28 intelligent wells, with reliability of 97%, through the adoption of best practices. The development stages of smart completion best practices will be illustrated citing various history cases and addressing important operational concerns.The learning discussed in this paper will provide an insight into how a large scale application of smart completion technology can be handled in a systematic way to achieve a successful conclusion.
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