Water Injection Performance Benchmarking & Replication of Best Practices Reduces Operating Cost Improves Recovery

Abstract

Water injection (WI) to improve oil production and increase reserves had been practiced in Malaysia since 1990s. Currently, around 27 fields are producing with water injection. To better manage these WI fields and gauge the relative performance of these fields, certain Key Performance Area (KPA) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) were identified. Measurement of these KPA and KPIs serves as a yardstick to compare performance of WI fields and thus provide measures to improve collective performance by promoting replication of best practices and sharing lessons learnt. In the era of digital technology, the periodic measurement of KPA and KPI has been automated using the existing online platform which can remain accessible to all related parties. It provides a platform for data visualization with simple look forward analysis. The WI data is stored in company databank and the performance dashboard can be viewed from existing software. The team managed to overcome the challenges in completing the historical data gap and data hygiene which previously were managed manually and were not integrated. This resulted in historical evaluation of KPAs and KPIs of certain fields. This automation initiative will enable practicing engineers to identify the value leakages and proposed mitigation efforts. Some of the best practices identified such as pipeline pigging optimization, correct biocide dosage, periodic calibration of flow meter and chemical optimization already helped to reduce operating cost in certain WI fields. With these efforts, the company could reduce the operating cost significantly in year 2018. Other than data visualization, the tool provides diagnostic plots such as Hall Plot, Chan's Plot etc. for quick analysis of signs of well/ reservoir health deviations and thus solutions could be provided proactively. On seeing the initial positive results, this tool is being tried for the rest of the WI fields. This paper details how this tool tries to diagnose all sub-optimal areas within various WI project simultaneously, which leads to operational excellence and improvement in oil recovery, by identifying value leakages, providing proactive solutions with replication of thus identified best practices. Additionally, usage of this tool to rank WI performance of different projects can potentially help to initiate competition between different operators for improvement.