Over the last decade, a number of subsea solutions have been deployed to unlock the commerciality of deepwater fields and increase the overall recovery factor of the reservoirs. Numerous types of monitoring and measurement technologies have been developed and installed downhole, subsea, and topside, but usually in a fragmented manner. The traditional field surveillance approach often addresses the reservoir challenges separately from issues that may affect flow in the production network or from processing facilities considerations. The value of information obtained using sensing equipment is then not fully taken advantage of, and critical information is lost due to the lack of integration. The objective of this work is to link all data collected along the fluid journey from the reservoir to the process facilties in order to optimize its production and better manage reservoir recovery. In this work, a novel integrated production management solution (IPMS) is introduced. Dedicated subsea and subsurface metering devices, advanced flow control equipment, production surveillance systems, and production optimization tools are combined to increase the understanding of the reservoir and subsea production network, maximize the value of the subsea hardware and address operational challenges to enable increased predictive flow assurance capabilities and production optimization. Bridging the gap from abstract measurement values to production management decisions, such as inflow control actuation; allow a better reservoir management implementation along of the field life, leading to an increased recovery. The functionality of the system is designed to address a number of challenges, including the following:reservoir management—recovery increase by combining continuous downhole sensing, seabed data, and IPMSEquipement centric monitoring and predictive maitenancethermal management—increase in system no-touch time and improved system preservationhydrate management—opex savings in regards to hydrate inhibitor injection and regenerationliquid management—avoiding unexpected shutdowns due to liquid surgespigging optimization—potential for reduced production losses during pigging operation and reduced pigging frequencylow temperature management—material integrity and hydrate preventioncorrosion and scale inhibition optimization—completion, subsea production system (SPS), and pipeline integrityerosion monitoring—SPSs and pipeline integrity. For the first time, integrated production data are used in online pore-to-process integrated models to guide reservoir decisions, optimize opex, and enhance recovery. Specific examples such as detection of reservoir property changes and their impact on recovery, optimized inorganic scale, and hydrates management based on integrated downhole seabed and process data are discussed in detail.

The complexity of carbonate reservoir in pre-salt plays dictates the use of advanced inflow devices to enable optimized reservoir recovery. Intelligent Completions are considered one of the most effective systems for flow control for a production interval. Depending on the actual design and geometry of the intelligent completion tool, inorganic scale deposition can be very difficult to prevent and/or to mitigate. The failure of such equipment tools can cause severe production impairment and affect the entire field economics. In order to provide a high accuracy assessment of the scale deposition risk, a novel methodology involving scale deposition experiments and model generation has been developed. The proposed workflow combines 1D mechanistic methods to define scaling conditions, thermodynamic models to define the scaling tendencies at these conditions and 3D models to predict particles accumulation in complex geometries using numerical techniques describing the multiphysics interactions between solid particles and live fluids. The basis of the models will be presented in this article along with numerical results of the precipitation and deposition phenomena at downhole conditions. This work represents the first holistic approach to characterize scale build-up in the vicinity of inflow equipment walls. Numerical results are presented in this paper.

Adhi gas—condensate field is located near Islamabad, Pakistan. Pakistan Petroleum Limited started fluid processing and recovery of Liquefied Petroleum Gas and Condensate around in 1990. The liquid stream was processed with no solids deposition in the past. Recently, the liquid processing circuit of the plant has experienced an increasing amount of black solid deposition, which is trapped into the liquid filters located in the plant. To identify the root causes of the problem of these solids depositional systematic approach was applied including taking various solid, liquid and gas samples from the plant inlet and various locations inside the processing plant and analyzing them for diagnostics. Based on the outcome of the root-cause analysis, a chemical mitigation strategy has been developed, tested and implemented, resulting in significant reduction in problems related with solid depositions in processing plant.

There is an increasing demand in using intelligent well completions such as ICV (Inflow Control Valve) due to increased reservoir and production complexity in subsea fields. Failure of a functional ICV due to scale deposition can cause severe production impairment, R&D efforts therefore implemented to qualify a novel coating material which will be used in ICV to prevent scale formation and adhesion. Depending on the geometry of ICV, scaling deposition risks varies; in general increased carbonate scaling are observed due to greater pressure drop gradient. This paper firstly evaluates the scaling risks over the field lifetime for a pre-salt carbonate reservoir, much increased scaling potential is identified across the region of the ICV which necessities the use of a novel coating. Special laboratory apparatus that simulate the hydrodynamic conditions is designed and tested based on CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) results. Intensive modelling using variety of scale software as well as CFD approach are carried out to assess scale risks over the field lifetime, identify the fluid dynamic behavior around the ICV and to investigate the scale formation and adhesion mechanisms and differences onto non-coated vs. coated surfaces. Comparative CFD modelling and laboratory testing results on coated and non-coated surfaces illustrates the much reduced scale accumulation and depositions onto coated materials. CFD modelling of the non-coated vs. coated coupon reactor indicates that the coated surface introduce higher velocity and less turbulence kinetic energy therefore reduce or eliminate surface accumulation and adhesion of scale particles. Lower velocity is observed upstream the ICV choke and around the inflow point, these areas are more prone for scale formation which leads to solid accumulation in the near wellbore region. This paper highlights the advantages of using advanced modelling techniques (including CFD and integrated PipeSim-ScaleChem models) to assist the selection of realistic testing conditions, to guide the high value test equipment design and to reveal the scaling mechanisms. The implementation of this novel technology helps to mitigate scaling problem and enhance the service longevity of smart completion tool, in particularly for severe scaling fields.

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