Breaking the frontiers for effective Flow assurance using Integrated Asset Models (IAM)

An integrated asset model (IAM) was constructed for an onshore carbonate gas condensate asset in Abu Dhabi. The strategic priority of the field is to optimize recovery of liquids and, therefore, the field is operated under gas recycling. After processing, dry gas is reinjected for the purpose of maintaining reservoir pressure to maximize condensate recovery. However, gas is a critical natural resource, and so a strategic decision was taken in 2011 to assign a portion of the produced gas for sales and use nitrogen as a makeup fluid to maintain reservoir voidage. The long-term implications of this decision will be the need for installation of nitrogen rejection units to ensure produced gas meets sales specifications after the field blows down. The IAM brought together reservoir, well, pipeline, and facilities domain models into an integration platform that provides an increased level of modeling fidelity by removing some of the simplifying assumptions and enabling cross-discipline collaboration to achieve understanding of the asset's problems and objectives. The model itself is complex and comprises a multimillion-cell reservoir simulation model, production and injection pipeline models, and a simplified model of the gas processing facility, all of which utilize a fully compositional approach to fluid modeling. The model was validated over a period of 6 months of production history by comparing calculated rates and pressures with measured field data from the field at the facility, trunkline, and well level. Once the validation phase was completed, the IAM was used to predict life of field performance. The IAM approach provided critical information not available from traditional standalone modeling. Firstly, more accurate accounting for the backpressure impact on the production and injection wells resulted in significant differences in production and injection profiles. Secondly, the inclusion of a facility model to update the injection composition resulted in major differences in nitrogen production. Finally, as a result of collaboration with facilities production, operations, and facilities teams during the project, the historical match to condensate production was considerably improved.

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Modeling from Reservoir to Export: A Compositional Approach for Integrated Asset Model of Different Gas Fields in North Kuwait Jurassic Carbonate Reservoirs

Torrens

Daoud

Amari

et al. 2015

Day 1 Mon, February 23, 2015

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A project was undertaken to construct an overview to build an integrated asset model (IAM) of an onshore fractured carbonate gas condensate and volatile oil asset in Northern Kuwait that is considered the first gas asset discovered in Kuwait. The asset has the potential to produce from six distributed fields producing from four hydrocarbon-bearing structures. The development strategy calls for extensive drilling and facilities expansion to increase and sustain production with the potential addition of depletion compression to further sustain the plateau. Because the reservoirs are highly compartmentalized, they are split into 19 separate models. Production is through three surface facilities, fluids vary significantly across the field from sour gas condensate to volatile oil, and it is important to consider the impact of reservoir deliverability, facilities capacity, and surface backpressure when evaluating different development scenarios. A novel IAM was constructed that integrates reservoirs, wells, pipelines, and facilities models into an integration platform. The IAM comprises 19 black oil dual porosity reservoir models coupled to a compositional network model via black oil delumping to convert the subsurface rates into six-components composition. A split table (compositional delumping) is then used to convert the six-components composition to 35 surface components to be used in the equation-of-state (EOS) surface network models to estimate the composition at each point at the surface (inlet and outlet of each facility). Then the network model is coupled to surface facilities modeling to estimate the rates and composition at the export level. This idea of mapping the subsurface fluid from black oil at subsurface to compositional at surface reduces the subsurface running time and makes the IAM more feasible from the running time perspective. The IAM has highlighted several differences versus the stand-alone modeling and the coupled modeling at the surface only. First, more accurate accounting for backpressure results in an increase in the plateau. Second, a production forecast for each facility gives a detailed analysis of production and the number of wells for each facility. Finally, detailed compositional information becomes available at all points in the surface network, which is important input to the facilities design.

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Breaking the frontiers for effective Flow assurance using Integrated Asset Models (IAM)

Cited by 13 publications

References 5 publications

A methodology for subsea system design considering integrated production/injection modeling

A methodology for subsea system design considering integrated production/injection modeling

Integrated Asset Modeling of a Gas Condensate Field Operating Under Gas Recycling Mode

Modeling from Reservoir to Export: A Compositional Approach for Integrated Asset Model of Different Gas Fields in North Kuwait Jurassic Carbonate Reservoirs

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