Development of the Alba Field – Evolution of Completion Practices, Part 2 Open Hole Completions; Successful Outcome – Drilling with SBM and Gravel Packing with Water Based Carrier Fluid

Murray, Grant; Morton, K.; Blattel, S.R.; Davidson, Eric; Macmillan, N.M.; Roberts, J.

doi:10.2118/73727-ms

Cited by 18 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…A predrilled liner is run in SBM, and the entire wellbore is then displaced to water-based fluids using one of the options discussed in the preceding; screens are then run in hole, and gravel packing is performed with a viscous fluid using the shunt-tube technique Hecker et al 2004) or brine using the ␣/␤ packing technique (Gilchrist et al 1998;Murray et al 2002). This approach ensures screen installation to target, as supported by numerous treatments in West Africa and India, but involves two trips and results in a reduced screen size compared with single-trip approaches Hecker et al 2004;Tolan et al 2009), which may be insignificant in certain environments (e.g., relatively low rig costs, no impact on production because of smaller screen size).…”

Section: Two-trip Predrilled-liner Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Openhole Gravel-Pack Case Histories Using Alternative Fluid Displacement for Synthetic-Based Mud

Ripa¹,

Rossi²,

Staltari³

et al. 2011

SPE Drilling &Amp; Completion

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Openhole gravel packing is one of the popular completion techniques in challenging, high-transmissibility reservoirs. Many of such wells are drilled with synthetic fluids and completed with either a single-or a two-trip technique.In single-trip approaches, the entire wellbore is displaced to water-based fluids before running screens and subsequent gravel packing. Although successful in some cases, this technique has been problematic in reactive-shale environments because of problems in screen installation to target depth, resulting from shale swelling and/or collapse. Such problems led operators to a twotrip approach in which a predrilled liner is installed in syntheticbased mud (SBM), displacements are performed to water-based fluids, and the screens are run in a solids-free (SF) water-basedfluids environment, followed by gravel packing. In recent years, another approach was introduced, in which the displacements to water-based fluids are performed after the screens are installed in conditioned mud and the packer is set, followed by gravel packing with a water-based fluid. Although this approach eliminates the difficulties associated with screen installation as well as allowing a single-trip completion (no predrilled liner), it cannot be used in cases where conditioning is impractical.In this paper, we present case histories where screens were installed after the open hole was displaced to a solids-free SBM and the cased hole was displaced to completion brine, and gravel packing was performed using a water-based carrier fluid. This approach provides a cost-effective alternative to displacement of the entire wellbore to SF-SBM as well as eliminating the risk of screen plugging, and it was implemented successfully on two oil producers in Oyo field. Details of design, execution, and evaluation for drilling and completion stages, as well as well productivity measures, are provided. Review of the Practices to DateMany of the deepwater developments in West Africa use SBMs for both upper hole and reservoir drilling, and almost all of them require some form of sand control, openhole gravel packing being one of the widely used techniques. Gravel packing in SBM environments evolved substantially over the years, with a variety of options that can be categorized on the basis of the type of carrier fluid used for gravel packing [note that the terms SBM and oil-based mud (OBM) are used interchangeably in the context of this paper].Oil-Based Carrier Fluid. In this approach, the screens are necessarily installed with oil-based fl uids in the entire wellbore, where the wellbore fl uids can be any combination of (a) conditioned SBM, (b) fresh SBM (no cuttings), and (c) SF-SBM or oil-based carrier fl uid. The conditioned-SBM approach requires that the mud be passed through shaker-screens of suffi ciently small openings to prevent plugging of sand-control screens during installation and subsequent operations. As such, the type of screens used in the completion (wire-wrap or premium/metal-mesh) and the size of screen openings, and t...

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Section: Two-trip Predrilled-liner Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Openhole Gravel-Pack Case Histories Using Alternative Fluid Displacement for Synthetic-Based Mud

Ripa¹,

Rossi²,

Staltari³

et al. 2011

SPE Drilling &Amp; Completion

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“…Wells W33 and W35 are covered in detail in a separate paper. 1 One point that emerges very clearly is that the main difference between the performance of the standalone completions and the openhole gravel packs is longevity rather than the SPI. …”

Section: Performance Summary Of Alba Producersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The second variation is the subject of another paper. 1 One of the main factors limiting well longevity was screen durability; obviously, screen failure meant the end of the well's useful life. Adopting gravel packing as the standard completion method has produced huge benefits with respect to screen and well longevity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of the Alba Field-Evolution of Completion Practices, Part 1: Openhole Screen-Only Completions to Gravel Pack

Murray

Brookley

Ali

et al. 2003

SPE Drilling &Amp; Completion

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The Alba reservoir (located in the central North Sea) is a highly permeable, unconsolidated sand body with lenses of reactive shales within the reservoir sand. From the initial decision to exploit the field with horizontal wells, there has been an evolutionary approach to selecting the most appropriate drilling fluid and completion technique. Field development has been marked by a drive to increase productivity and reduce the total cost of the ownership of the asset.The major challenges in completing wells in this field involve sand control and inhibition of reactive reservoir shales.Initially, completions were prepacked screens in open hole, and the fluid used to drill the reservoir section was oil-based mud (OBM). Productivity was lower than expected, but improvements were achieved by switching to sized salt water-based mud (WBM) and initiating a very stringent quality-control procedure for the drilling and completion fluids. However, screen failure occurred within 2 to 3 years of production startup, and the wells almost invariably sanded up. More recent changes have involved a switch to sized calcium carbonate WBM and openhole gravel packs.Because the geology of the Alba field dictates that there is almost always some shale exposed in the openhole reservoir section, it was found that the gravel-carrier fluid needs to be equally as inhibitive as the drill-in fluid.Since 1998, 13 openhole gravel packs have been successfully completed, with high flow rates and no history of sand production in all cases. This paper deals with the performance of the various techiques applied and details the best practices derived for optimum productivity and screen longevity. * ChevronTexaco internal report, Houston (1997).

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“…The key factors that drove most operators towards water-based reservoir drilling have been: The number of documented case histories on gravel packing of wells drilled with S/OB fluids is extremely limited. [3][4][5][6] In two of these case histories, 3,4 the openhole was displaced to a completion brine prior to running in hole with sand control screens, and the water-packing technique was used. In one case, filter cake erosion as evidenced by gradual decline in return rates resulted in a premature termination of the α-wave, leading to a packing efficiency of approximately 60%.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The fourth paper discussed case histories from the North Sea, where a predrilled liner was run in hole with OBM in the entire wellbore. 6 Subsequently, the open hole was displaced to a WB fluids loss pill (essentially, a WB-RDF) following some solvent/spacer stages, and the cased hole to brine. The sand control screens (mesh media) were then run in hole and the wells were water-packed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Open-Hole Horizontal Drilling and Gravel-Packing With Oil-Based Fluids - An Industry Milestone

Wagner

Webb²,

Maharaj³

et al. 2004

SPE International Symposium and Exhibition on Formation Damage Control

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fax 01-972-952-9435. AbstractAn increasing number of horizontal wells requiring sand control are being gravel packed, particularly in deep-water and/or sub-sea environments, where completion reliability is paramount due to prohibitively high cost of remediation. Tophole sections in many of these wells are being drilled with oilbased fluids, with the common practice of switching to waterbased fluids when the reservoir drilling starts. In the last several years, some operators started using oil-based drilling fluids in the reservoir section as well, and gravel packed them with water-based fluids. In some cases, these practices required running pre-drilled liners in oil-based fluids, and subsequently displacing to water-based fluids, prior to running in hole with the sand-face screens and gravel packing. In other instances, screens could be run in hole with oil-based fluids in the wellbore, and gravel packing could be performed with water-based fluids. In both cases, the presence of reactive shales and/or water-sensitive productive zone can introduce serious concern in the event that the carrier fluid losses occur into the formation during gravel packing. Although a base-oil or diesel can be used as a carrier fluid, low density of the base oil limits such applications to low-pressure/depleted wells.In this paper, we present a case history of the first successful application of drilling and completing in an all oil environment, utilizing a reversible oil-based reservoir drilling fluid and an oil-based gravel packing fluid. The carrier fluid used in this application included a filtercake cleanup solution in the aqueous internal phase of the oil-based carrier fluid, extending the application of simultaneous gravel packing and cake cleanup processes that have been successfully practiced in water-based fluid environments, to oil-based systems. The subject application was in a high-rate gas field located offshore Trinidad, with anticipated production rates in excess of 150 MMSCFD per well. Presented in the paper is the drilling and completion selection methodology based on extensive laboratory and yard testing, along with the details of the completion and recommendations for future applications based on lessons learned. A direct comparison of the all-oil drilling and completion process to water-based drilling and completion is also presented based on a case history from the same field.

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Development of the Alba Field – Evolution of Completion Practices, Part 2 Open Hole Completions; Successful Outcome – Drilling with SBM and Gravel Packing with Water Based Carrier Fluid

Cited by 18 publications

References 3 publications

Openhole Gravel-Pack Case Histories Using Alternative Fluid Displacement for Synthetic-Based Mud

Openhole Gravel-Pack Case Histories Using Alternative Fluid Displacement for Synthetic-Based Mud

Development of the Alba Field-Evolution of Completion Practices, Part 1: Openhole Screen-Only Completions to Gravel Pack

Open-Hole Horizontal Drilling and Gravel-Packing With Oil-Based Fluids - An Industry Milestone

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