Field Application of Tubing Deployed Inflow Control Devices ICDs to Repair Liner Failures in SAGD Completions: Diagnosis, Design, Deployment and Outcome

Abstract

Liner failure is one of the key risks in operation of SAGD producers and is often associated with erosion as a result of steam production (Burke, L. et al. 2018). Among various intervention methods, tubing deployed inflow control devices (ICDs) have been used to remediate wells. In this paper, two field examples of using tubing ICDs are discussed, one inside a wire wrapped screen liner and the other inside a liner deployed ICD system. Liner failures were diagnosed by analyzing the temperature data from fibre optics along with the performance indicators of the ESP pumps. Various remediation plans such as patching the failed intervals, using tubing ICDs or drilling a parallel lateral were considered. Using tubing deployed ICD systems along with blanked intervals was selected as the most practical solution to recover productivity from these wells. To size the ICDs and length of segments, a range of emulsion production volumes as well as estimated corresponding vapor and gas volumes were assumed. Furthermore, the risk of creating new hot points near the existing failed points or vapor producing intervals was considered. The well workovers involved detailed planning of operations and services to effectively achieve cleanouts, maintain adequate inner wellbore diameter to run the swell packers and correlate DTS data with workover findings. The workover involved gauge runs, a jet-vac clean-out, a multi-finger caliper log and mud circulation of the wellbore for final solid removal to ensure successful installation of the new ICD systems. The wells were put on production initially with low drawdown and slowly ramped up to let the packers set and sand to form bridges. After a few months of production, the wells were fully ramped up with production rate increasing 2 to 5 times the pre-workover rates. ESP pump performances is stable in both wells and the fibre optic temperature data show that failed liner intervals and hot points are well managed. The intent of this paper is to share the processes and factors considered in using remedial ICDs and the learnings from the workover operations and startup of the wells.