GUPCO Experience with Giant Fields: Case Studies from Egypt

Abstract

GUPCO is one of the largest E&P Companies in Egypt and Middle East. It has a vast infrastructure with a large number of wells, platforms, pipelines and offshore facilities. GUPCO's peak production exceeded 600,000 BOPD in 1983 while it produces around 100,000 BOEPD today from more than ten geological formations in Gulf of Suez (GoS). GUPCO produced more than 4.6 billion STBO which represent more than 43% of Egypt's total cumulative oil to date. And in spite of that, we still have many opportunities and success yet to achieve. As one of the petroleum industry leaders, GUPCO was and will always seek success and excellence in managing its assets. For more than fifty years, GUPCO used to follow the highest standards available in petroleum industry, and applied them in all areas to achieve that outstanding excellence. From day one, GUPCO realized that understanding subsurface features and optimizing recovery from different fields are the key areas among all. As a result, GUPCO had made concerted efforts in those areas in specific. Managing giant fields is not an easy task; it requires special knowledge and experience to manage such critical asset since each 1% increment of oil recovery means tens of millions of oil barrels. And because GUPCO has four giant fields, it was serious for us to do our best to maximize their value. GUPCO started that early whilst exploration phase, appraisal, development and currently in maturity phase. Along these different phases, we utilized wide spectrum of tools starting from basic technical elements (e.g. flow equations, DCA, MBE, PTA… etc.) reaching to state-of-the-art techniques and technology available (e.g. Numerical Modeling, Artificial Intelligence and EOR) at which GUPCO uses numerical reservoir simulation extensively, utilizes neural network in different applications, and already applied TAP (Thermally-Activated Particles) technique which is called commercially BrightWater® to improve sweeping efficiency, and also studied feasibility of Low Salinity Waterflooding (LoSalTM) which is planned to be implemented in near future after upgrading water injection facilities. In this paper, we are going to present various case studies with detailed elements GUPCO followed to accomplish that success in managing giant fields, and how such powerful techniques contributed in maximizing our asset value. We'll explain also what we did from day one highlighting different challenges we faced and how we managed to solve them, and more importantly, we'll elaborate our experience in dealing with giant fields under all levels of field's maturity, highlighting the importance of many tools we've utilized. And ultimately, proposing guidelines to be followed whilst applying Waterflooding for utmost benefit.