Advanced ERD Lower Completions: Delivering Accelerated Production and Enhanced Performance

Abstract

This Extended Reach Drilling (ERD) field re-development predominantly from four artificial islands of a giant offshore field in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) requires in most cases extremely long laterals in order to reach the defined reservoir targets, by the field development team. The giant offshore field can be effectively split in to two (2) geographical sections; East and West. The East portion of the field has been developed extensively and is considered to have good reservoir properties. The West portion of the field has much lower quality reservoir properties and requires an engineered lower completion liner in order to deliver the required well performance that will adequately produce and sweep the reservoir. The engineered liner along with the extremely long laterals means significant time is spent switching the well from reservoir drilling fluid (RDF) non-aqueous fluid (NAF) to an aqueous completion brine. In order to reduce the amount of rig time spent on the displacement portion of the completion phase, technologies have been developed to provide a method of switching the well from RDF NAF drilling fluid to an aqueous completion brine, without the associated rig time of the current displacement method. This technique eliminates the use of a dedicated inner displacement string and allows for the displacement to be performed with the liner running string, saving on average five (5) days per well. In this paper the authors will demonstrate the technology and system developed to perform this operation, as well as the qualification, testing, field installations and lessons learned that were required to take this solution from concept to successful performance improvement initiative.