Harsh wellbore environments reduce the run-life of an Electrical Submersible Pump (ESP), adversely affect casing integrity and require expensive ESP replacements that also subject the well to formation damage due to invasion of the kill-fluid used for well-control. Under such severe operating conditions, an ESP pod system coupled with an isolation packer and a fluid loss valve (FLV) can increase the pump run life, reduce downtime and improve well integrity. Pod system is a specially designed capsule to encase the ESP in an enclosed and sealed environment. The Isolation-packer along with the fluid loss valve (FLV) provides mechanical isolation at the sand-face during ESP replacement operations and protects the formation from the invasion of damage inducing kill fluids. During production, the system safeguards the casing from corrosive well fluids and eliminates damage to the power cable from pressure cycles; fluid enters through the bottom of the pod system and is lifted through the tubing without coming in contact with the casing above the packer. This paper describes a case history on the planning, in-house design, completion and post-installation performance of an ESP pod system implemented as a pilot study for a well in Humma field, Wafra Joint Operations –Partitioned zone. A cost effective and case specific solution was achieved by assembling the various ESP pod components together after researching the various vendors available. The objectives of higher production, improved recovery, and reduced lifting costs were achieved since installation, in the last five and a half years of ESP run-life. The pod system proved to be a customized solution for this well which was previously functioning with diminished pump performance and suffered from frequent failures that led to critical well control issues encountered during pump replacement. ESP is a preferred mode of artificial lift in the Humma field to tackle higher production rates from deep reservoirs. The post installation performance of the ESP pod system has laid the guidelines to achieve uninterrupted and commercially viable production from similar reservoirs that have sub-hydrostatic reservoir pressure and hostile downhole operating environments not conducive for a standard ESP installation and operation.

The South Fuwaris field comprises of low to moderately permeable heterogeneous carbonate reservoirs, developed with horizontal bare-foot completions with increased pay-zone exposure. Hydraulic Fracturing conducted in tangent section of the production liner for a horizontal open-hole producer is shaping the development strategy for this field where conventional coiled-tubing matrix stimulations couldn't achieve the intended wormhole penetration due to inherent pumping rate limitations, and borehole enlargements had rendered Acid fracturing in open-hole only moderately successful. The inability to attain effective pressure containment necessary for formation breakdown had resulted in unsuccessful open-hole Acid fracture treatments in this field for both existing and newly drilled wells, either due to non-uniform bore-hole enlargement left-over by formation dissolution from previous matrix stimulations, or due to undulations and wash-outs in newly drilled laterals. To circumvent these operational limitations, the candidate well was drilled as a barefoot completion in the direction of minimum horizontal stress with an extended production liner to accommodate a cased-hole Acid Fracture treatment with transverse fracture orientation designed to drain a large section of the reservoir. Well testing was distributed into phases to interpret the production enhancement from this completion technique, to quantify contribution from the open-hole lateral after initial completion, from the isolated uppermost fractured interval immediately after the Acid Fracture treatment and the subsequent commingled production from both the open-hole lateral and the cased-hole fractured intervals. The key elements that led to the success of this project were the execution of well placement perpendicular to the fracture plane orientation as expected from local stress distribution, achieving an effective cement bond in the horizontal production liner and an advanced fiber based Acid-Fracturing stimulation designed to deliver deeper and infinitely conductive fractures. Evaluated in terms of operational cost savings and efficiency of the treatment execution, the treatment strategy is a major improvement over the conventional multi-stage assemblies previously employed for fracturing open-hole horizontal laterals in the South Fuwaris field. The job design eliminated the use of any complex permanent down-hole assembly for the fracturing treatment which means there isn't any reduction in the cross sectional area and hence no additional pressure drop imposed by flow restrictions and also a complete bore-hole access is available for future open-hole matrix stimulations or other interventions. The objective was to evaluate the existing completion strategy in South Fuwaris field for horizontal wells; to challenge the current ideology focused entirely on performance of long open-hole single or multilaterals, and focus more on reservoir development by way of fractures initiated entirely from the cased-hole horizontal section. The project's success has opened pathways to further explore in this direction to establish the optimum completion design for thin and tight heterogeneous carbonate formations like South Fuwaris.

To design accurate inflow control device (ICD) completions in high water cut wells, it is critical to have a thorough understanding of the downhole flow profile and zonal phase contribution across the zone of interest. The situation becomes more complex when dealing with an open hole horizontal section with complex trajectory, where the presence of stagnant water sumps and oil humps is common and can lead to in-accurate determination of water and oil entry zones. Production logging tools typically deployed in such environments will require to have their data quality checked, as the well conditions can either leave the spinners clogged or the holdup probes sticky with downhole debris or emulsion. Production logging tools will also need to reach the deepest point within the lateral section to ensure complete coverage of the potential flow area across the open hole section. Electrical line enabled coiled tubing (CT) technology was considered to overcome the conveyance challenges to deploy these production logging tool. The selected rugged design of the coil-to-wireline interface increased the reliability and the safety of the intervention. In this paper, a case study will be presented detailing how careful operational planning, integration between the conveyance method and the production logging tool resulted in the detailed and accurate downhole flow profile, which was then utilized in the ICD design for this well.