Stiff Targets Raise the Bar and Brings About a Game-Changer

Abstract

Enhance Production by 100,000 bbls/day; Optimize and sustain Production rate by reduction in Water-cut; Drill over 100 Horizontal and Sub-Horizontal wells to increase production by over 1000 bbls/day/well and Smart completion methods to delay water-cut and maximize oil recovery. These objectives sounds straight out of the Management dream Wish-list to impress the stake-holders. Well, not so for Kuwait Oil Company. These were indeed the objectives of recovering an aging field and creating a complete make-over of the fortune from this oil field in North of Kuwait. And as expected from all such grandiose projects, it did run into its own share of road blocks in achieving these objectives. Uncertain geological data, troublesome shale's cut at high angles, improper hole-cleaning practices, crew un-accustomed to handling challenges of horizontal wells and found wanting in many technical aspects, aging rigs finding it difficult to keep up to the demands of good hole cleaning and solids control, various short-coming of directional vendors and tools, completing wells with stiff ICD assemblies were the challenges which made the project stand the test of time and money. KOC stood up to these challenges and devised strategies, practices and methods to overcome these crippling challenges. Wells which initially were completed in over 120 days were brought down through innovative solutions, state-of-art technology, sheer will-power and determination to succeed down to 45 days on an average. This paper is going to highlight optimizations, innovations and usage of cutting edge technology carried out to overcome these stiff challenges. The learning curve was steep but it was overcome with sharing of knowhow through team-work and the burning zeal to succeed. This success story definitely holds lessons for all those who embark on the road to create magic. And this story definitely needs to be told over and over again.