The Raudhatain Zubair reservoir play a key role in the production development plan for North Kuwait. The Zubair production is contributing 20% of total north Kuwait production. Well RA-XX3in North Kuwait Raudhatain field, produced a significantly higher oil rate than existing wells in the field. Production was the application of the latest perforating technologies comprising of deep penetrating charges along with the unique Perforating for Ultimate Reservoir Exploitation and Dynamic Under balance (DUB). The charge used is the deepest penetrating charge available in the industry today, based on API-19B section 1, with penetration depth of 65.2″. Prior existing wells produced an average of 1500 BOPD. This well after being perforated using Dynamic Under balance (DUB) and deep penetrating charges produced 3000 BOPD with zero water cut. The interval perforated was in a high deviated well where traditionally a Tubing Conveyed Perforation (TCP) deployment would have been used to convey guns with a static under balance, correlating the gun positioning with a RA marker more than 2000 ft above the interval. Using the wire line tractor, the guns were positioned accurately on depth, utilizing DUB technology, with significant rig time saving over the conventional TCP runs. A further three wells have been shot using this conveyance method and has shown to provide significant rig time saving with additional production due to DUB technique and accuracy of gun positioning. This SPE paper and presentation will demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of deploying guns using WL tractor and benefits of DUB perforating. This successful operation has provided a new approach to underbalanced perforating on tractor to achieve clean, zero-skin perforations is replacing the prevailing underbalanced concept of perforating job design.

An operators renewed focus on horizontal well drilling and open hole completions, using Inflow Control Device (ICD) screens, necessitated the use of oil-based drill-in fluids (DIF) to drill and complete their reservoir. The challenges were increased by low reservoir pressure conditions, increasing the risk of drilling fluid invasion and possible reservoir damage. Comprehensive laboratory studies were carried out to evaluate DIF performance and ensure understanding of the possible damage mechanisms produced while drilling, considering the reservoir characteristics and drilling conditions.The customized near-wellbore damage remediation system, with a delay-reaction, was designed based on Mesophase technology. This paper discusses detailed laboratory analysis for the clean-up system and its field applications in Kuwait horizontal wells. The applications included drilling carbonate and sandstone reservoirs, open hole ICD completion, and performing effective cleanup required for maximum production.The effectiveness of the Mesophase clean-up system to remediate reservoir damage and improve producibility was evaluated immediately after well kick off and again after steady production levels were reached. This paper shows the results obtained after the application of the near-wellbore remediation technology.The lessons learnt during the Mesophase application were incorporated on upcoming wells to standardize the operating procedures and improve field performance.

Development in drilling technology allows horizontal and multilateral wells to increase hydrocarbon recovery and accelerate production from high water mobile reservoir by increasing the reservoir contact surface. In coning situations, such as production of oil reservoir with a bottom aquifer, multilateral wells reduce the coning affect and hence prove to be more cost effective. To address these challenges, first multilateral well with Level-4 junction combined with Inflow Control Device (ICD) was planned, designed and drilled in Upper Burgan Reservoir of Raudhatain Field, North Kuwait. The Upper Burgan Formation is layered sandstone–shale sequence deposited in deltaic settings having very fine to fine grained marine influenced channel sand as reservoir rock. Geosteering and evaluating these wells is very challenging without using a proper LWD technology. Indeed, the resistivity anisotropy is a major issue, especially if it occurs with influence of other bed boundary effects like resistivity of adjacent beds or polarization horn effects. Water coning issues in the field makes it even worse to interpret the resistivity data as they become spiky. To overcome these challenges the drilling bottom hole assembly was designed in the way to include the distance to boundary and the new Multi-function LWD sourceless technology. The capture gamma ray spectroscopy and formation sigma in real time has improved the petrophysical evaluation of this complex resistivity environment with mixed lithology in wells that are difficult or even costly to consider TLC wireline logging. The Lower Lateral of 2145′ with 8½" hole diameter was drilled through very fine grained sandstone in UB3 Lower zone and completed with 5" open hole ICD. The Upper Lateral of 1757′ was placed in UB3 upper zone having very good reservoir quality. This lateral was completed by 4½" open hole ICD. The production is comingled as the pressure difference between the two laterals was not more than 100 psi. The well operated under Electrical Submersible Pump (ESP) produced more than the estimated rate of oil during initial production. The success of the well not only addressed the issues related to enhancement of oil production and premature water break through but also opens up a new chapter of drilling multilateral wells in coming days in Raudhatain Field, North Kuwait. The paper covers the main challenges while well placement during geosteering to stay in the best quality of reservoir rock in structural and depositional complex settings and with the smart completion design for increase oil production and rate of recovery.

As a part of KOC policy to bring recent technologies, two locations were drilled successfully using the concept of PAD. The PAD Drilling project was conceptualized initially to address surface constraints for upcoming locations due to congestion of flow lines and environmental reasons through a feasibility study conducted in 2005 by KOC. “Cluster Drilling” offers the opportunity to drill multiple locations from a common area “PAD” and this results in more compact operational area for well placement, flow line construction, less foot print area besides complimentary reasons like less rig move time, improve well monitoring during operational surveillance when the wells would be producing. This approach of PAD Drilling was completely new to KOC, and requires special Drilling Rigs, new HSE regulations and new approved flow line regulations to handle such wells' cluster. Because of short space among the producing wells, workover operations become challenging and require developing new Simultaneous Operations procedures (SIMOPS) to keep the work under safe conditions. Series of meetings with concerned departments have been conducted and discussed all HSE aspects to secure the operations. Checklist has been prepared and approved. Using this new SIMOPS Procedures, The first workover operation on PAD was implemented successfully in Nov 2013 with no incidents. The wells were connected back on production with total production rate of 6000 BOPD. This topic has been endowed CEO HSSE Award 2014.

Kuwait Oil Company is pursuing fast track technology deployment in its fields to meet the strategic target of production. The horizontal wells provide good mean to exploit the reservoir through increased reservoir contact but it brings some inherent problems in optimizing production and low cost well intervention. To address these inherent challenges, the deployment of inflow control device (ICD) has become a normal trend of completion in horizontal wells. The completion of horizontal wells with ICDs helps in optimizing production but information of inflow contribution from each section qualitatively and quantitatively is still a challenge. In this perspective, KOC has deployed intelligent chemical inflow tracer technology combined with On/Off ICDs below an ESP in a horizontal well located in its northern field to assess the inflow performance of the production. The horizontal well was drilled through a heterogeneous reservoir, which was compartmentalized with swell packers and completed with On/Off ICDs. In these types of wells, traditional production logs are considered risky and expensive due to the limitations of using a small-diameter coil tubing, which must fit through the Y-tool on the ESP. This small diameter coil tubing will go into helical buckling before reaching the toe of the well resulting in an incomplete log for the well. In some cases, the wells are lacking Y-Tool facility, which practically does not allow production logging in the well. In such cases, the intelligent chemical inflow tracers are used to provide a qualitative assessment of the clean-up phase of production, quantitative inflow information from each zone, and to identify the section producing water along the horizontal well. The use of intelligent tracers overcame the intervention challenges by installing intelligent downhole chemical sensors in pup-joint carriers next to the ICD joints in each compartment from heel to toe to meet monitoring objectives of Kuwait Oil Company. Fluid samples collected from the surface flow lines were analyzed for unique chemical tracer signatures and interpreted the corresponding tracer signals. This has resulted into identification of quality of fluid flowing from each section concomitant with its quantification. In addition, the pilot results have increased the reservoir understanding that leads to optimum ICD designs for future wells in the same reservoir. This paper discusses the first well installation of its kind in Kuwait, the methodology for selecting the technology, the deployment in the well, and the interpretation of results of water and oil tracers obtained during different monitoring campaigns through fluid sampling.