This paper discusses the increasing importance of intelligent completion technology in presalt developments. The Brazilian oil and gas service industry was challenged when a major oil company decided to implement large-scale intelligent completion technology for exploratory and development campaigns for two important exploration blocks, due to the limited experience and expertise in this region. The technology is considered important for reservoir risk management because of its flexibility. An intelligent completion provides a means to remotely control inflow as necessary by a reservoir management team. This additional functionality maximizes oil production and reduces unwanted water or gas influx. The technology comprises several important multizone systems, such as remotely operated flow control valves, permanent pressure and temperature monitoring, digital infrastructure, and chemical injection valves. With limited experience and infrastructure available in the region at the time, considerable planning and interface management was necessary to ensure successful execution. The deep water presalt application imposed several challenges and uncertainties related to long-term reliability and flow assurance, such as calcium carbonate scaling, vibration, erosion, corrosion, etc. Additionally, human resources and local technical expertise along with a strong infrastructure had to be developed. Within approximately five years, the industry effort to reduce the learning curve made it possible to deliver intelligent completion technology with a proven track record into the country. During these intensive preparation years, several key findings were realized. Standardization became important early during the process, which was crucial for accelerating learning. However, as the understanding of the technology evolved, new applications and well designs were implemented. Intelligent completions are currently being considered during all stages of the field life cycle, from extended well testing to the mature field stage, with different benefits expected for each application. With an increasing need to optimize value from the presalt wells, a holistic approach was necessary that integrated recovered data and active control into a digital platform to allow a more informed and strategic decision making process using the intelligent completion technology capability to maximize the reservoirs’ value. Results achieved to date allow a much wider application range, with increasing importance for upcoming deepwater presalt cluster development. A milestone of 50 wells installed in several fields using this technology was achieved in the Brazilian deepwater presalt with an accelerated learning curve. Many uncertainties existed initially; however, multiple successful installations have proven this technology implementation to be reliable, with small differences in capital expenditures (CAPEX) compared to conventional wells.
This paper describes an extended well test (EWT) campaign using intelligent completions in a presalt reservoir. Brazil is recognized as a promising deepwater province because of large oil discoveries in the presalt polygon. One such discovery contains an estimated eight billion barrels of recoverable oil and is considered to be one of the largest fields recently identified. Several challenges and risks are associated with ensuring economic returns, such as properly constructing wells and extracting value from their lifecycles. Most presalt fields contain thick carbonate reservoirs with significant variations in vertical permeability and unknown behavior affecting long-term production. Most of those uncertainties can be reduced using extended well testing; however, the solution implemented uses multizone completions to perform EWT, providing a new level of reservoir understanding. To better understand reservoir behavior during production, several options were analyzed for the first EWT to help minimize uncertainties concerning the extensive pay zone. Drilling wells provides valuable rock and formation knowledge; however, this information is not sufficient to simulate formation flow behavior during the field lifecycle and reduce production uncertainties. In addition, current oil market conditions imposed another challenge to maximize output during EWT, impacting some well designs and the campaign strategy. A triple-zone intelligent completion was envisioned as the optimum solution to be applied for properly understanding how each interval would behave under production or injection. EWT was performed on two producers and one injector. Based on project requirements, gas and water had to be reinjected into the reservoir. Additionally, using two producers allowed the operator to maximize oil output while performing the EWT with production details from each zone rather than the entire well. Both producers were completed with dual-zone intelligent completions systems because of technical limitations, while the injector was completed as planned with three zones. Proper planning, preparation, and experience from other projects contributed to the campaign success in such a challenging exploratory completion. During preparation, several evaluations and studies were performed to help ensure the proper technology was selected and the system could withstand the extremely high flow rates with high scaling potential expected along with other flow assurance concerns. A future commissioning campaign in this field should allow further evaluation of the applicability of this concept to other fields, which is promising for reservoir evaluation studies.
This work reviews several typical intelligent well systems (IWS) completed, including a gas producer, oil producer, auto-gas lift oil producer, multilateral IWS producer, and horizontal openhole multi-isolation producer. For each case, the wellbore modeling, completion design, choking operation strategies, and estimated performance will be introduced.Case histories based on the analysis of the well modeling results at the design stage of the IWS completion, including well performance along with real-time data, will demonstrate:• Was value realized by using an IWS? • How did the IWS completion, downhole choking, and monitoring contribute to adding value in accelerating hydrocarbon production, managing production allocations, delaying or minimizing water production, increasing recovery, and decreasing CAPEX or intervention costs?In conclusion, this paper will show how modeling technologies were developed to derive the IWS well and equipment design such as tool selection, customized choking positions, erosion protection, and tubing movement estimation. It will cover lessons learned through our experience in intelligent well systems, including flow modeling, erosion analysis, tool selection, and crossover control, and how we expect the future movement of this technology. to evolve. SPE 124916This paper will review several installations of various applications with intent to address these issues. First, defining the requirements of the well and the purpose within the field, an analysis of how much of the expectations was met with discussion on future usage of intelligent well technology. IWS Experiences and Value RealizationThe benefits of installing IWSs have been described by many authors 1-4 . In summary, those benefits can be attribubed to two main categories: for the purpose of reservoir management, including accelerate hydrocarbon production, improved reservoir knowledge, and flexible control production and drawdown to increase ultimate recovery; and for the purpose of decreasing OPEX or CAPEX cost, where decreasing intervention cost is one of the typical applications especially in offshore operation. The following paragaphs give the descriptions of those benefits, based on our IWS case histories, available production and well test data, operator feedback, and theoretical modeling analyses at pre-completion design or post-completion stages.A large percent of the planned IWS completions are used to control a well that penetrates multiple production zones with commingled production. Obviously, accelerate production, produce marginal reserves, improve reservoir knowledge, and increase recovery are the main drivers for these IWS applications. Two-Zone IWS Gas Producer and Planning of Completion -Manage commingled production, adding flexibility in reservoir managementCompletion description. Fig. 1 illustrates a schematic of one completed two-zone IWS well with a dual flow path frac-pack system. Two downhole control valves are installed. The lower downhole control valve is shrouded and connects to a small outer-diamet...
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