Extended reach wells with thousands of feet of open hole reservoir contact and multilateral wells with 8-10 laterals are becoming common practice as the industry develops tight and difficult reservoirs. Over the years, drilling and well construction technologies have made significant advances in the field of geosteering, multilateral junctions, etc. to make these complicated wells a reality and commonplace. The industry has recently introduced several new well completion technologies for the downhole monitoring and control inflow of these extended reach and multilateral wells. Over the last 10 years Saudi Aramco has drilled and completed hundreds of multilateral wells with intelligent completions for real-time downhole monitoring and remote valve operation to control inflow from each laterals. These technologies have improved well performance and reduced well intervention. The paper presents the case study for the design, planning, installation, and operation of Saudi Aramco's first intelligent completion that is operated with combined electro-hydraulic control system. New technologies like these are expected to improve the operation and inflow from the new generation multi-compartment wells. Conventional intelligent completion systems uses downhole valves that are operated by hydraulic pressure and the pressure is supplied from surface through dedicated hydraulic lines to each of the downhole valves. The wellhead and operations equipment has a maximum limit of eight downhole lines and this limits the number of downhole valves in a completion to five. The system in this case study uses a electro hydraulic control module at each of the downhole valves and can control of up to 12 intelligent completion tools with the use of only two hydraulic lines and one electrical line from surface. Technologies like these allow inflow control from each of the laterals and enhance the performance of the completion.
In an oil field, openhole multilateral maximum reservoir contact (MRC) wells are drilled. These wells are typically equipped with smart well completion technologies consisting of inflow control valves and permanent downhole monitoring systems. Conventional flowback techniques consisted of flowing back the well to atmosphere while burning the hydrocarbon and drilling fluids brought to surface. In an age of economic, environmental and safety consciousness, all practices in the petroleum industry are being examined closely. As such, the conventional method of flowing back wells is frowned upon from all aspects. This gives rise to the challenge of flowing back wells in an economic manner without compromising safety and the environment; all the while ensuring excellent well deliverability. By utilizing subsurface smart well completion inflow control valves, individual laterals are flowed to a separator system whereby solid drill cuttings are captured and discharged using a solids management system. Hydrocarbons are separated using a separation vessel and measured before being sent to the production line toward the field separation facility. Permanent downhole monitoring systems are used to monitor pressure drawdown and subsequently control the rate of flow to surface to ensure reservoir integrity. Following the completion of the solids and drilling fluid flowback from the wellbore, comprehensive multi-rate measurements at different choke settings are obtained to quantify the well performance. This paper looks at the economic and environmental improvements of the adopted zero flaring cleanup technology and smart well completions flowback techniques in comparison to conventional flowback methods. This ensures that oil is being recovered during well flowback and lateral contribution to overall flow in multilateral wells. In addition, it highlights the lessons learned and key best practices implemented during the cleanup operation to complete the job in a safe and efficient manner. This technique tends to set a roadmap for a better well flowback that fulfills economic constrains and protects the environment.
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