In recent years, improved/enhanced oil recovery by tuning the ionic composition of injection water has attracted the attention of the petroleum industry, and currently deemed as new emerging research trend. In view of research results for the last four years, we demonstrated in previous reports (SPE 137634; SPEREE Journal, vol. 14(5), pp. 578-593; SPE 143550, SPE 141082, SPE 154076; SPE 154077) that substantial oil recovery beyond conventional waterflooding from carbonates can be achieved by optimizing the salinity and ionic composition of field injection brine. Similar potential has been confirmed also in the secondary recovery mode. For recovery mechanisms, research confirmed that the driving mechanism is wettability alteration of carbonate rock surface and can be attributed to surface charges alteration, and microscopic dissolution of anhydrite. In this paper, we present the results of two field trials conducted in a carbonate reservoir to demonstrate the SmartWater Flood potential. Both field trials confirmed that in-house research results can be replicated at field scale. Injection of SmartWater revealed a reduction of ~7 saturation units in the residual oil beyond conventional seawater. Considering these field trials are the first-ever applications in carbonate reservoirs, they further provided another confirmation that SmartWater Flood has significant potential to be a new recovery method targeting carbonate reservoirs. A special type of single-well chemical tracer was used in these trials to measure the residual oil in the vicinity of the well following the injection of each water type. During all stages of field trials, careful QA/QC program was put in place to monitor variation in ionic composition in all injected or produced fluids and further insure optimum ionic composition of SmartWater slugs. Several field trials are planned to optimize the current process leading to a multi-well Demonstration Pilot to determine the impact on ultimate recovery and reserves.

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.

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.

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.

Fishing operations are complex and time consuming. This is due to the associated uncertainty with the orientation and condition of the tool that requires fishing. In this paper, a case study is presented which demonstrates the usefulness of utilizing downhole camera technology in conjunction with fishing operations. The use of real time camera inspection enabled successful fishing of a challenging plug. In addition, the traditional trial and error approach used in most fishing operations was avoided reducing the operation time and cost. The paper case study is a high pressure oil producer that has a stuck retrievable plug at 200 ft. The presence of the fish at a shallow depth makes well intervention operations critical from well control perspectives. In such cases, fishing operations must be meticulously designed to account and plan for contingencies should complications arise during fishing. Attempts to fish the plug using normal and heavy duty slickline were not successful. During these fishing attempts, several tools were lost in hole due to the damaged nature of the stuck plug adding to the complexity of the fishing operation. To address this challenge, a downhole camera with real time data transmission capability was run in the well using coiled tubing to enable viewing the condition and orientation of the lost fishing tools and the stuck plug. The results of the camera inspection runs were instrumental in subsequent fishing tools selection and adjusting the operating procedures. The first camera run revealed the presence of metal objects obstructing proper latch to the fish neck. Following clean-up runs with magnet, the second camera inspection run clearly showed partial damage to the top of fish neck (chipped out metal piece). The rest of the fishneck was found intact. Given the nature of damage to the top of the fishneck, conventional fishing tool sizes (3 in.) were not able to latch the fish. Accordingly, a smaller fishing tool (1.26 in. spear) was run and latched inside the bottom of the fish neck instead of the damaged top. The 1.26 in. spear run was successful in latching inside the fishneck and in recovering the fish safely. The fishing operation design, job execution, and contingencies will all be discussed in this paper.