Using Optimization Techniques for Determining Optimal Locations of Additional Oil Wells in South Rumaila Oil Field

Abstract

Determining the optimal location of the wells is a crucial decision to be made during a field development plan. A reservoir simulator called "SimBest II" has been used in the present study. The oil field under study is a sector of South Rumaila oil field/main pay. Two methods of optimization have been adopted in the present study. The first one is manual optimization and the second method is automatic optimization. Genetic Algorithm (GA) was used as the automatic optimization method to find the best number and locations of the wells. Genetic algorithm depends on the principle of artificial intelligence similar to Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. The genetic program is coupled with the simulator in order to re-evaluate the optimized wells at each iteration. The genetic algorithm computer program gave results similar to the results that are obtained by the manual method with less computer time. Both methods have been adopted according to the aspects of net present value (economic evaluation) as objective function. According to the relationship between net present value and future production time, the abandonment time was estimated before end of December 2014 for all proposed future scenarios. The optimal future scenario was with water injection of 15000 surface bbls/day per well. The optimal number of additional wells for this case was nineteen wells, but it may be impossible to drill such a number of wells in the one year especially in Iraq. Moreover, that an alternative option of drilling three wells with reduction of 0.07399 % in NPV has been considered. This option is also suggested if the surface injection facilities cannot handle the injection of 15000 surface bbls/day. The optimal number of additional wells for this choice is also three wells.

Coupling Programming of an Adaptive Genetic Algorithm with Reservoir Flow Simulation for Infill Oil Well Locations Optimization

“…The NPV is one of the applications of cash flow model The present study incorporates revenues such as oil and gas sales, as well as expenses such as operating, water handling and injection costs. The net present value is defined as the revenues from produced oil and gas sales, after subtracting the costs of disposing produced water and the cost of injecting water and the initial costs (9), (10) . The initial costs represent the capital expenditures.…”

Advanced ML and AI Approaches for Proxy-based Optimization of CO2-Enhanced Oil Recovery in Heterogeneous Clastic Reservoirs

“…Thus, the direction of flow is parallel to the northern and southern boundaries, as shown in Figure 1. The flow boundaries at the east and west flanks represent the natural water drive due to the infinite aquifer (Al-Mudhafer et al , 2010).…”

“…Primary oil production started in the South Rumaila field in early 1954, but water injection was not initiated until the 1980s to maintain infinite active edge-aquifer support from west flank, which accumulates up to 20 times the influx from east one (Al-Mudhafer et al , 2010, Kabir et al , 2007.…”

Geological and production uncertainty assessments of the cyclic $$\text{CO}_2$$ CO 2 -assisted gravity drainage EOR process: a case study from South Rumaila oil field

“…The no-flow northern and southern boundaries are assumed, because the isobaric lines are perpendicular to these boundaries, where the production flow lines are in parallel. The infinite active aquifer at the eastern and western flanks represents a no-flow boundaries (Al-Mudhafer et al 2010).…”