TX 75083-3836, U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435. AbstractKuwait's production to date is characterized by large, massive reservoirs undergoing natural depletion with the help of strong natural aquifer drives. In a few fields, natural aquifer support is supplemented by pattern or peripheral waterflood. However, there has been no systematic attempt to define the Improved Oil Recovery (IOR) potential within the country. This study is a first attempt to assess this potential. The study considered 10 IOR displacement processes, suitable for longterm implementation within Kuwait.These processes included waterflood (including chemical floods), gas injection processes, and thermal methods. The study did not consider techniques based purely on well stimulation or infill drilling (e.g. cyclic steam injection, or horizontal well development); the potential for these techniques is already well understood and considerable data already exists for planning around these options. The study focused on screening reservoirs and identifying IOR processes for further study.The screening was in two parts. The first part was an evaluation of process suitability for all reservoirs. The second part was a ranking of IOR opportunities by reservoir. In total, over 800 process/reservoir combinations were evaluated. The evaluation process made use of various industry criteria; however, these were modified to better reflect conditions within Kuwait. After screening for suitability, the reservoirs were ranked in importance for future study. This ranking included: incremental oil recovery, crude quality cost per barrel and urgency (timing). This ranking will be used to direct resources at particular projects for further study and, if positive, future implementation. Key technical contributions of this work include: data evaluation techniques, consistent ranking of reservoirs with varying degrees of risk, development of scoping economic models for preliminary project assessment.
Currently Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) is facing asphaltene deposition problems in the wellbore of some of the Marrat Jurassic reservoirs in West Kuwait (WK) and South East Kuwait (SEK). This has caused a reduction in production and shutting of some of the wells and a severe detrimental effect on the economics of oil recovery. This paper describes the results of the laboratory studies on the characterization and phase behavior studies of three different crude oil samples from Marrat reservoirs, and the screening of a number of commercially available inhibitors, which were proposed as a remedy and prevention of asphaltene deposition for this reservoir. Initially the samples were characterized for their chemical and physical properties. Then the phase diagram (P-T) and Asphaltene Deposition Envelope (ADE) for bottom-hole samples were established by measuring the saturation and Asphaltene Onset Pressures (AOP) at different temperatures from reservoir to surface conditions by using the laser technique Solid Detection System (SDS). Asphaltene Flock Point (AFP) analyses were then performed by the titration technique using Stock Tank Oil (STO) samples and n-Heptane as the asphaltene precipitant. The effects of different concentrations of each inhibitor on different reservoir fluids were investigated in the laboratory, using the AFP technique. The most efficient inhibitor with the optimized concentrations for each reservoir fluid was established for economical evaluation purposes. Based on these studies, a selected inhibitor is now being used for a pilot field study. Introduction Asphaltene precipitation and deposition from oil reservoir fluids during production is a serious problem as it can cause plugging of reservoir formation, wellbore, tubing and production facilities.
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Kuwait's resources and reserves to date are characterized by giant, large, massive oil and gas fields located in onshore and offshore areas of Kuwait. These fields are under different stages of development like natural depletion, pressure maintenance and enhance oil recovery (EOR) processes. Over the years, huge amount of resources and reserves data has been accumulated from these fields. This has made Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) to re-evaluate its approaches towards management of these huge volumes of data efficiently. With passage of time, it has become more challenging to manage these reserves and resources volumes and promotions to meet company's growth strategies.Historically, KOC was managing its resources and reserves through a manual Reserves Management System (RMS) spreadsheets for tracking, archiving, monitoring, reporting and managing the resources and reserves.With time, RMS has become a very complex and involved process and it was felt necessary to introduce a new process and tool to manage the overall RMS workflow efficiently to meet company's business needs. Accordingly, KOC decided to introduce a systematic workflow tool to streamline the process of managing hydrocarbon resources and reserves data. The new workflow process consist of a robust multiusers database for archiving, managing and reporting which can be accessed by different teams at different security levels. This enhanced system enabled KOC's management and reserves evaluators to optimize the company's resources and identifying possible opportunities to meets its strategic goals.
Oil companies are facing several challenges from external and internal environment like volatility of crude oil price, capex reduction, subsurface uncertainty, delay in the surface facilities etc. that impacts the long-term strategic plans. Kuwait Oil Company (KOC)'s annual Asset Action Plan (AAP) operationalizes the long-term strategy of the company assurance of annual AAP is key for having a credible forecast and meeting long term goals. A robust Corporate Assurance process has been developed that consists of workflows that will guarantee company's ability to develop and execute credible field development plans. A review on proper planning, execution and alignment of different business processes is required during assurance of Asset Action Plan. This assurance process provides confidence to the management in approving the AAP. Opportunity based Asset Action Plan (AAP) process is the backbone of KOC's annual business planning and portfolio management system. This allows alternative portfolio choices and management can make the right decision. The opportunity will provide consistency and clarity of the Portfolio constituents and common rational basis for investment decision making and allow for alignment between the KOC major business processes. AAP process is carried out annually and is initiated through high level business guidelines management. During finalization of AAP, an assurance review by corporate technical team for large national companies having multiple assets is considered as best practices that support management in approving the AAP and to steer the company in right direction. AAP Assurance process involves reviewing the forecast with the historical performance of the reservoir, planned activities, expected outcomes from the activities, feasibility and associated cost. A systematic three stage process has been adopted to conduct AAP Assurance for reservoirs which are at different phases of development. This assurance workflow and methodology helps to align changing oil and gas scenarios, different business process, health of the reservoirs and meeting future production targets. This process ensures that proposed AAP plan will be able to deliver production target commitments and identify any gaps and propose mitigation plans. This also confirms that ongoing development plans are in alignment with facility planning. It also validates conformance of the adopted reservoir development and management workflows with global best practices (analogue reservoirs) to maximize recovery and maintaining health of reservoir.
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