A Systematic Approach for Evaluating Entire Production System Value Chain to Deliver the Dynamic Market Production Demand Using an End to End Production Simulation Process

Abstract

Within a complex and dynamic production system with several operational challenges, maintaining a steady stream of throughput to meet the production targets based on the day to day well availability is a key business driver. This paper discusses an all-inclusive integrated modeling approach to evaluate the supply side of the production value chain, i.e. reservoir & well deliverability and the demand side, i.e. production targets. The process starts with the representative inflow reservoir performance and well performance generation. In the second step, the key business requirements are applied as quantified parameters such as shareholder guidelines, minimum well production, and maximum drawdown. The most conservative figure was taken to ensure the long-term reservoir health. Subsequently, the target production was estimated from each reservoir based on the current strategic business plan. Lastly, an allocation mechanism was applied, honoring the required target-production and the well capacity to give a unique solution. The major output of the entire process was achieved by estimating the well targets and probable shortfalls, honoring the process constraints within the production system. Also, the output of this target estimation was transferred to the surface network simulation to consider the back pressure impact and provide adequate outputs such as choke settings and wellhead pressure settings. This outlines process provides a standardized approach that is utilized to cater the several business needs, such as minimizing the liquid loading, optimizing the drawdown to maintain a stable reservoir performance, and health. Starting from producing layers to the delivery point, this process uses an integrated approach encompassing the various components in a complex production system such as reservoir capacities, fluid composition, well behavior and network capacities to assure a representative forecast. This approach is crucial in a gas-producing operating asset as the fluctuation in demand can be easily fulfilled using a seamlessly integrated approach that takes care of the dynamic operations variables such as well availability, surface facility back pressure, etc. in a single platform. The approach improves the efficiency of target estimation significantly as the previous tiresome work of updating the simulation models and running the isolated calculation have been replaced with few clicks within the workflow. This holistic approach is in line with the overall corporate strategy of integrated reservoir management (IRM) guidelines ensuring the long-term development plan and strategy is inherent to the overall process.