Application of Inflow Well Tracers for Permanent Reservoir Monitoring in North Amethyst Subsea Tieback ICD wells in Canada

Abstract

North Amethyst is the first subsea tieback field development for Husky Energy's White Rose project, located off the East Coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The geographical location presents some of the harshest weather conditions in the world due to the elevated sea states and ice conditions. The North Amethyst field achieved first oil in 2010 and at the end of December 2011, had three production wells and three water injectors. Further wells are planned as part of the development.To counter imbalance in the horizontal flow profile that can lead to early water or gas breakthrough, the field development strategy employed Inflow Control Device (ICD) technology. The ICD technology application was the first offshore on the East Coast of Canada.A method of proving effective horizontal clean-out and flow distribution for the ICD technology was necessary. However, due to the subsea configuration complexity, semi-submersible rig costs and delays due to unfavorable weather conditions, the prospect of production logging the horizontal wells was deemed a high risk and expensive operation.To overcome these hurdles, unique inflow tracer technology was used in tandem with the ICDs to provide validation of clean-out and horizontal flow distribution. The North Amethyst producers were equipped with unique oil and water soluble tracers placed along the horizontal, embedded in the ICD screens. The tracer technology's objectives were to monitor the zonal contributions during clean-out and during the production phase. Water tracers were to monitor and identify the location of zonal water breakthrough.Topside fluid samples were analyzed, and tracer concentrations provided the basis for extracting well inflow information. The utilization of inflow tracer systems in collaboration with other reservoir engineering tools has provided validation of horizontal contribution and feedback about individual ICD nozzle placement. This paper will document the design, execution, and analysis of the tracer results in two initial North Amethyst ICD producers.

Evaluation of the Release Mechanism of Sustained-Release Tracers and its Application in Horizontal Well Inflow Profile Monitoring

“…Andresen et al 23 applied the sustained-release tracer to monitor inflow profiles of offshore horizontal wells and described its working principle, installation, and the inflow profile interpretation method. Montes et al 24 installed five water-soluble and oil-soluble tracers in the wellbore. The inflow profile and bottom water breakthrough time of the application well are obtained by tracer monitoring, thus verifying the effectiveness of the ICD completion.…”

Streamline-Based Transport Tomography With Distributed Water Arrival Times

“…In one such approach, the tracer is installed within the completion, and each well segment can have a different chemical tracer ( Fig. 1) (Williams and Vilela 2012;Napalowski et al 2012). Analysis of the effluent tracer information can now indicate the location and the timing of water breakthrough at each completion along the wellbore (Kam and Datta-Gupta 2014).…”