Novel Surveillance Technique for Beam-pumped Wells to Minimize Intervention and Optimize Production, South of Oman

Abstract

Majority of oil wells operated by Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) are produced by beam-pumps (BP). Average water cut in a number of fields in South of Oman reaches 95%. Increasing water production overloads processing facilities leading to handling and disposal constrains requiring wells to be shut-in. BP completions are not surveillance friendly making production logging to identify water entry for optimization (water shut-off) a challenge. The current technique to acquire production logs requires recompletion to dual-string completion to allow logging: BP short-string and surveillance conduit long-string. This is resource intensive, high cost, restricts production and limited to 9-5/8in. cased wells. Moreover, new wells are completed with dual 9-5/8in. × 7in. casing for well life-cycle integrity management. A novel solution was developed and part-funded by PDO consisting of a jet-pump (JP), 1in. inside 2in. concentric-coiled tubing (CCT) strings, power cable and production logging tools (PLT). This cost-effective real-time surveillance technique will facilitate routine production logging in BP wells, significantly reducing well intervention time and cost (50% reduction) as only the rod string is retrieved by light-hoist in preparation for logging. Wells completed with dual-string completions, which have previously been production logged were selected for field trial. These existing logs were used as a baseline for new log comparison. The technique was successfully deployed in a 3 well field trial campaign for the first time in southern oilfields (industry first). The new production logs compared very well to existing logs (same water signature observed), proving the techniques robustness to identify water entry in different production environments. We preset advantages of the new technique over conventional, candidate selection, logging tool options, interpretation methodology, field trial results and comparison logs. This new system is being deployed across PDO and is applicable to other fields being produced by BP, progressing-cavity pump (PCP) or electrical submersible pump (ESP) to identify water entry for production enhancement or reservoir monitoring.