A heavy oil field in Northern part of Kuwait has developed which requires appropriate disposal of produced formation water. Some important questions for water disposal well planning include: Where to inject?Where to inject?What is the maximum operation pressure (MOP)?How far away the disposal wells should be spaced?How much water can be inject in each well? Integrated subsurface evaluation performed to address above questions. Seismic data provide a good overview lof the structuration and imporatant insight where sweet spots for injection may be found. Wireline logs and core information are used to derive petrophysical properties, characterize fracture, and gather geomechanical information. Injectivity tests established the injection rate and confirmed the estimated minimum horizontal stress. Analogue water injection data from nearby fields are used to provide information on the dynamic behavior of the reservoir, to reduce uncertainties owing to the limited injection rate data available. The integrated analysis of the relevant, available subsurface data reveals that the Tayarat formation has significant variations in lithologies, mineralogies, and mechanical properties. Important information such as the receiving zone thickness, fracture orientation, injection rate, and storage capacity have been derived. Based on this information, we have made important recomemndations on disposal well spacing and maximum operational operating pressure (MOP).

A steam flood pilot in unconsolidated sandstone reservoir is being performed for the first time in Kuwait with inverted 5 spot configuration and pattern areas of 5 and 10 acres and a total of 26 wells. Prior to the steam flood, two cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) cycles were applied in all wells. This paper provides a detailed description of the well completions and challenges during CSS and the ongoing steam flood operations. Different designs of well completions were evaluated for injection and production wells. Injection well completion designs were evaluated by comparing actual vs. expected injection rates and review of operational issues. Production well completion designs were evaluated by comparing peak production rates, decline rates and sand issues. Two different injection well completion designs were evaluated. In the 5 acre, the steam injectors target two sand sub layers and hence initially completion were designed with downhole steam splitters but later removed due to injectivity issues. In the 10 acre, steam injectors target a single sand layer using packer less completions. Production wells were completed with 7" case hole perforated with 3.5" completion tubulars and insert sucker rod pump (ISRP). Sand screens were installed in some producers, but 50% of them were removed later due to very sharp production declines. When the screens were pulled out, screens were found completely plugged with debris. The responses from the 2 CSS cycles were very good with average peak well production rates of higher than 100 BOPD. The steam flood pilots have been running for around 6 months and the preliminary results are very encouraging. There is a clear initial response to steam flood, characterized by an overall increase in gross and oil production. The experience and the lessons learned from the CSS and evaluation of initial response of steam flood pilots are very useful in risk identification and mitigation applicable to the commercial phase.

The oil field is located 40 km offshore Sarawak, Malaysia in the southwestern part of the Baram Delta at a water depth of 250 feet. It is an anticline bounded by two (2) sealing faults and composed of multiple hydrocarbon bearing sand reservoirs separated by sealing shale layers. Oil has been produced since 1972 from more than 10 different reservoir units. Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) redevelopment project in the field will begin in 2018. The project will increase the crestal gas injection and initiate water injection at various locations in the water leg for two (2) major oil rim reservoirs. In a third relatively smaller reservoir water and immiscible gas will be injected in an immiscible Water-Alternating-Gas (iWAG) scheme. Required gas for the entire project will be supplied from five gas reservoirs, as well as by recycling the produced gas from the oil reservoirs. A Well, Reservoir and Facilities Management, or WRFM, plan was put together to prepare the reservoirs for the EOR project and to further optimise the development decisions. This paper outlines the objectives of the WRFM plan for the EOR redevelopment project. Key uncertainties that have an impact on the development plans are highlighted. A summary of surveillance activities required to manage the key uncertainties are given. At the end, focusing on the XE/XF reservoir group, reservoir surveillance required to monitor and manage a mature off-shore oil rim reservoir is discussed. XE/XF reservoir has a large gas cap and surrounded by an aquifer. The oil rim is dynamic in nature, which moved into the gas cap after the start of production due to the imbalance between the strong aquifer and gas cap expansion. For pressure maintenance purposes, as well as to prevent the rise of the oil rim, gas injection into the cap was started in 2001. Most recent saturation logs show that the current oil-water and gas-oil contacts in the field can no longer be regarded as even surfaces. The surveillance plan focuses on monitoring the saturation and pressure changes in the reservoir to locate the current gas-oil and oil-water contacts, and to understand the strength of the surrounding aquifer. The learnings will impact the number and locations of production and injection wells that are planned to be drilled as a part of the EOR project. In addition, the results will be used to update the existing dynamic reservoir model, which will be utilised for long term reservoir management.

Steam Assisted Gas-Oil Gravity Drainage (SAGOGD) trial is planned for a limited area of a giant producing light oil field in Oman. Oil production from this oil-wet fractured carbonate reservoir commenced in 1967, and recovery factor currently stands at approximately 20%. The SAGOGD process in a light oil fractured reservoir is complex and is comprised of numerous recovery mechanisms, with a number of these being uncertain and poorly understood. Very little world analogue data is available [1], and that, combined with large recovery process uncertainties make this ‘large pilot scale’ Phase 1 essential to mitigate the downside risk in a full-field development. During Phase-1 it is planned to inject 2000t/d of steam by means of 4 vertical steam injectors. Oil, gas and condensed steam will be produced by 7 horizontal producers and 5 vertical back-up producers. The magnitude of the SAGOGD production response is highly uncertain. Having the capability to accurately measure the incremental oil production response over this wide uncertainty range was considered to be a key success factor for the Phase 1 project. To accurately measure the incremental response required that a ‘no steam’ production response could be confidently projected into the future for a minimum of two, and up to five years. This task was made considerably more complex by the fact that historical GOGD well production profiles were often relatively unstable. This paper describes the work carried out within PDO to ensure that one of the key Phase 1 success criteria – that being to measure the incremental oil due to SAGOGD – can be achieved over a primary evaluation period of two to five years. The discussion will include a description of efforts linked to optimization of cold GOGD performance (optimum oil rim management), well production stabilization (via installation of new production control hardware) and accurate measurement of total and individual well production levels (dedicated bulk and well-test facilities), and how this all came together to yield a stable cold production baseline which could be confidently projected into the future.

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