Integrating Advanced Well Completion Technology Improved Well Performance & Maximized Recovery - Case History

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.H. Sunbul ◽  
K.S. Al-Mohanna ◽  
H.B. Al-Qahtani ◽  
D.E. Hembling ◽  
G. Salerno
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fen Yang ◽  
Larry K. Britt ◽  
Shari Dunn-Norman

Abstract Since the late 1980's when Maersk published their work on multiple fracturing of horizontal wells in the Dan Field, the use of transverse multiple fractured horizontal wells has become the completion of choice and become the “industry standard” for unconventional and tight oil and tight gas reservoirs. Today approximately sixty percent of all wells drilled in the United States are drilled horizontally and nearly all of them are multiple fractured. Because a horizontal well adds additional cost and complexity to the drilling, completion, and stimulation of the well we need to fully understand anything that affects the cost and complexity. In other words, we need to understand the affects of the principal stresses, both direction and magnitude, on the drilling completion, and stimulation of these wells. However, little work has been done to address and understand the relationship between the principal stresses and the lateral direction. This paper has as its goal to fundamentally address the question, in what direction should I drill my lateral? Do I drill it in the direction of the maximum horizontal stress (longitudinal) or do I drill it in the direction of the minimum horizontal stress (transverse)? The answer to this question relates directly back to the title of this paper and please "Don't let your land man drive that decision." This paper focuses on the horizontal well's lateral direction (longitudinal or transverse fracture orientation) and how that direction influences productivity, reserves, and economics of horizontal wells. Optimization studies using a single phase fully three dimensional numeric simulator including convergent non-Darcy flow were used to highlight the importance of lateral direction as a function of reservoir permeability. These studies, conducted for both oil and gas, are used to identify the point on the permeability continuum where longitudinal wells outperform transverse wells. The simulations compare and contrast the transverse multiple fractured horizontal well to longitudinal wells based on the number of fractures and stages. Further, the effects of lateral length, fracture half-length, and fracture conductivity were investigated to see how these parameters affected the decision over lateral direction in both oil and gas reservoirs. Additionally, how does completion style affect the lateral direction? That is, how does an open hole completion compare to a cased hole completion and should the type of completion affect the decision on in what direction the lateral should be drilled? These simulation results will be used to discuss the various horizontal well completion and stimulation metrics (rate, recovery, and economics) and how the choice of metrics affects the choice of lateral direction. This paper will also show a series of field case studies to illustrate actual field comparisons in both oil and gas reservoirs of longitudinal versus transverse horizontal wells and tie these field examples and results to the numeric simulation study. This work benefits the petroleum industry by: Establishing well performance and economic based criteria as a function of permeability for drilling longitudinal or transverse horizontal wells,Integrating the reservoir objectives and geomechanic limitations into a horizontal well completion and stimulation strategy,Developing well performance and economic objectives for horizontal well direction (transverse versus longitudinal) and highlighting the incremental benefits of various completion and stimulation strategies.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang-Biao Ouyang

Most of the current research and commercial reservoir simulators lack the capability to handle complex completion details like perforation tunnels in a simulation study. In most common applications, the simplified handling of completion complexity in reservoir simulations is not expected to introduce significant error in simulation results. However, it has been found that under certain circumstances, especially in high rate wells that have become more and more common in deepwater oil and profilic gas development, exclusion of the complex completion details in a reservoir simulation model would lead to nontrivial errors. New equations have been proposed to assess the needs to incorporate completion details in a reservoir simulation study based on the understanding of the fluid flow in a formation, the fluid flow along a wellbore and the fluid flow through perforation tunnels if exist. A series of sensitivity studies with different completion options under different flow and reservoir environments has been conducted to provide some guidance to improve well performance prediction through reservoir simulation. Impacts of key parameters like perforation density, perforation diameter, perforation length, wellbore length, borehole diameter, well completion configuration, well placement, reservoir permeability, reservoir heterogeneity, pressure drawdown, etc, have also been investigated.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. T167-T178
Author(s):  
Courtney Beck ◽  
Anna Khadeeva ◽  
Bhaskar Sarmah ◽  
Trey Kimbell

Understanding natural fracture systems is key for tight carbonate plays, in which production is dependent on secondary interconnected porosity networks. Locating geographic areas and stratigraphic sections with high natural fracture density and optimizing well locations and perforations to connect these fractures can enhance well performance and asset value. There is substantial production variation in the Cretaceous stacked carbonate play in East Texas, despite similarities in well completion and perforated intervals. Petrophysical property models did not explain the significant variation in well production; therefore, we have developed a multidisciplinary workflow combining seismic and log data with the goal of identifying faulting and natural fractures and understanding their effect on production. We used seismic discontinuity to map faults as the main indicator of presence of fractures. We calibrated triple combo logs with an image log to generate an indicator curve to identify natural fractures. The fracture indicator curve provided a good prediction of where natural fractures may occur, and discontinuity maps revealed a good correlation to well production. Furthermore, we concluded that drilling too closely to large faults negatively impacted production and correlated with increased water production. The workflow developed here can be used to optimize well placement in the stacked carbonate play of Madison County, Texas, and it can be applied to other fractured carbonate reservoirs.


2007 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 181
Author(s):  
G. Sanchez ◽  
A. Kabir ◽  
E. Nakagawa ◽  
Y. Manolas

The optimisation of a well’s performance along its life cycle demands improved understanding of processes occurring in the reservoir, near wellbore and inside the well and flow lines. With this purpose, the industry has been conducting, for several years, initiatives towards reservoirwellbore coupled simulations.This paper proposes a simple way to couple the near wellbore reservoir and the wellbore hydraulics models, which contributes to the optimisation of well completion design (before and while drilling the well) and the maximisation of the well inflow performance during production phases, with support of real-time and historical data. The ultimate goal is the development of an adaptive (self-learning) system capable of integrated, real-time analysis, decision support and control of the wells to maximise productivity and recovery factors at reservoir/field level. At the present stage, the system simulates the inflow performance based on an iterative algorithm. The algorithm links a reservoir simulator to a hydraulics simulator that describes the flow inside the wellbore. The link between both simulators is based on equalisation of flow rates and pressures so that a hydraulic balance solution of well inflow is obtained. This approach allows for full simulation of the reservoir, taking into consideration the petrophysical and reservoir properties, which is then matched with the full pressure profile along the wellbore. This process requires relatively small CPU time and provides very accurate solutions. Finally, the paper presents an application of the system for the design of a horizontal well in terms of inflow profile and oil production when the production is hydraulically balanced.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noman Shahreyar ◽  
Ben Butler ◽  
Georgina Corona

Abstract The drilling and completion of multilateral wells continues to expand and advance within the oil industry after three decades of accelerating adoption. The performance of these wells can be increased when integrated with advanced well completion techniques. The addition of intelligent completions (IC) and inflow control devices (ICD/AICD) enhances well performance and improves field recovery. This paper discusses a reservoir simulation case study that evaluates the productive impact these technologies provide when combined with multilateral technology (MLT), and the mechanism by which they achieve it. A reservoir model is devised and simulates under dynamic reservoir conditions the field production of dual lateral and single bore horizontal wells. The simulation is conducted for three separate scenarios where AICD and IC are incrementally implemented. The results are compared across the scenarios and their value quantified. The mechanisms by which estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) is increased will be discussed, including the increase of reservoir contact, drawdown distribution optimization, and the control and delay of water production. The study will provide an overview on the theory behind the technologies. It will also review the workflow used to conduct the study, utilizing a combination of steady state nodal analysis software and dynamic reservoir simulation software. Additional information about the reservoir model, initial and boundary conditions are detailed, to provide insight into reservoir simulation methodology.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Soroush ◽  
Mahdi Mahmoudi ◽  
Morteza Roostaei ◽  
Hossein Izadi ◽  
Seyed Abolhassan Hosseini ◽  
...  

Abstract In wake of the biggest oil crash in history triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic; Western Canada in- situ production is under tremendous price pressure. Therefore, the operators may consider shut in the wells. Current investigation offers an insight into the effect of near-wellbore skin buildup because of such shut-in. A series of simulation studies was performed to quantitatively address the impact of well shut-in on the long-term performance of well, in particular on key performance indicators of the well including cumulative steam to oil ratio and cumulative oil production. The long-term shut-in contributes to three main modes of plugging: (1) near-wellbore pore plugging by clays and fines, (2) scaling, and (3) chemical consolidation induced by corrosion. A series of carefully designed simulations was also utilized to understand the potential of skin buildup in the near-wellbore region and within different sand control devices. The simulation results showed a higher sensitivity of well performance to shut-in for the wells in the initial stage of SAGD production. If the well is shut in during the first years, the total reduction in cumulative oil production is much higher compared to a well which is shut-in during late SAGD production life. As the induced skin due to shut-in increases, the ultimate cumulative oil production drops whose magnitude depends on well completion designs. The highest effect on the cumulative oil production is in the case of completion designs with flow control devices (liner deployed and tubing deployed completions). Therefore, wellbore hydraulics and completion design play key roles in the maintenance of uniform inflow profile, and the skin buildup due to shut-in poses a high risk of inflow problem and increases the risk of hot-spot development and steam breakthrough. This investigation offers a new understanding concerning the effect of shut-in and wellbore skin buildup on SAGD operation. It helps production and completion engineers to better understand and select candidate wells for shut-in and subsequently to minimize the skin buildup in wells.


2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. SB85-SB96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nabanita Gupta ◽  
Supratik Sarkar ◽  
Kurt J. Marfurt

The organic-rich, silty Woodford Shale in west-central Oklahoma is a prolific resource play producing gas and liquid hydrocarbons. We calibrated seismic attributes and prestack inversion using well logs and core information within a seismic geomorphologic framework to define the overall basin architecture, major stratigraphic changes, and related variations in lithologies. Core measurements of elastic moduli and total organic content (TOC) indicated that the Woodford Shale can be broken into three elastic petrotypes important to well completion and hydrocarbon enrichment. Upscaling these measurements facilitates regional mapping of petrotypes from prestack seismic inversion of surface data. Seismic attributes highlight rugged topography of the basin floor of the Paleo Woodford Sea, which controls the lateral and vertical distribution of different lithofacies containing variable quantity of TOC as well as quartz, which controls brittleness. Depressions on the basin floor contain TOC-lean cherty lithofacies alternating with TOC-rich lithofacies, resulting in brittle-ductile rock couplets. In contrast, basin floor highs are characterized by overall TOC-rich ductile lithofacies. Seismic attributes illuminate complex post-Woodford tectonic deformation. The Woodford Shale is known to be naturally fractured on outcrop. Image log analysis in other shale plays showed a good correlation between such tectonic features and natural fractures. These features need to be correlated with well trajectories and production data to determine which hypothesized “fracture sets,” if any, improve well performance.


2012 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 181
Author(s):  
Nematollah Tarom ◽  
Mofazzal Hossain

Reservoir performance, in addition to day-to-day well performance, needs to be evaluated during the life of a well. The production logging tool (PLT) is conventionally designed to provide a full set of data measurements in producing wells to evaluate well and reservoir performance. Depending on the well conditions and location, running conventional PLTs may be difficult, impossible or expensive. Therefore, an alternative approach that can be applied in lieu of PLT operations—to obtain information similar to PLTs for better reservoir management—and that can optimise reservoir production performance is desireable. Data acquisition techniques such as downhole pressure/temperature gauges, fibre optic sensors at reservoir conditions and wet-gas flow meters at the surface have been considered as a viable alternative. Such data acquisition techniques help to increase flexibility in the field development and reservoir management of problematic wells with well completion technologies such as multi-lateral, horizontal and artificial lift. This study focused on the development of an alternative method of analysing problem well data on the basis of downhole pressure and temperature data collected at reservoir conditions. The proposed model has been based on the Joule-Thomson effect and radial heat and fluid flow equations to solve the transient wellbore pressure and temperature equations. It is expected this model can be used to analyse intelligent wells completed with downhole pressure and temperature sensors, and facilitate the monitoring of wells and reservoir performance without any PLT operation, especially for complex fields.


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