Formation Damage History in the Mature Fields of Campos Basin Offshore Brazil

Abstract

fax 01-972-952-9435. AbstractThe Campos Basin mature fields, offshore Brazil, including the Marlim Field, are usually referred to as the World's deepwater field laboratory. The development of these fields was driven by the Brazilian state energy needs throughout the seventies and eighties, which induced a strategy of accelerating the projects implementation and anticipating their first oil. This sense of urgency is still dominant in Brazilian oil politics and has recently enabled the country to reach its oil self-sufficiency. That scenario throughout the last two decades encouraged risk assumption as well as the implementation of a considerable number of new technologies. Fifteen years after the first oil production from Marlim it seems that more engineered solutions are replacing the daring initiatives and the concise studies carried out in the beginning. Those years also testified an outstanding evolution of the drilling and completion technologies. The development advance to deeper and deeper waters brought up unpredicted problems such as wax deposition and hydrate formation. Thus, the history of the mature deepwater fields of Campos Basin offers great opportunities for learning, in a wide perspective. This paper summarizes the history of the damage and main completion troubles associated to Campos Basin deepwater mature fields. The aspects of prediction, prevention and remediation of the formation damage associated to drilling, sand control, stimulation, fines migration, organic deposition, scale, souring and other minor issues are addressed. The paper also presents some statistical data, predicted and unpredicted problems, and the ways they have and are currently handled. The technologies evolution and the most recent challenges are also shown. It is our belief that other deepwater mature fields to be developed and the new systems to be designed will certainly benefit from the experiences and lessons learned in the deepwater mature fields of Campos Basin. SPE 106389porosities, requiring the installation of sand exclusion systems, either in the producers or injectors wells. The development of the deep and ultra-deep fields has been accomplished by using floating platforms and subsea completions, associated to complex subsea layouts. The wells evolved from vertical and deviated to complex horizontal and extended reach, high rate ones. In this scenario damage is usually very expensive to be removed and implies large production loss.This paper provides a summary of the CB context evolution throughout the years with respect to: national energy politics, technological challenges, human resources, organizations structures, and the history of offshore installations. It also presents a section on damage identification methodology and its history considering the type of damage, and finally a few conclusions.