Production Gain and Optimization through the Implementation of Smart Well Completion Technology in Saudi Aramco, Case Study

Dossary, Faisal M.; Dawsari, Saud A.; Anazi, Rayid

doi:10.2118/150369-ms

Cited by 14 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…After determining the productivity indices of the laterals several combinations of ICV openings are performed to meet the best production performance while maintaining the best reservoir management practices. 2 The following production optimization achievements were accomplished during a smart wells production optimization campaign:…”

Section: Current Optimization Methodology and Achieved Benefitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The strong lateral was restricted to position 7 and the productivity indices were balanced across the laterals. 2 The optimization process was performed purely by trial and error and common sense while changing the ICV opening and closing combinations and pressure monitoring. The next section in this paper describes how the optimization practices were taken to a new level for simulating the flow utilizing the Netool program.…”

Section: Pi Variationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Evaluating Flow Contributions and Enhancing the Design of Smart Well Completions

Al-Muailu

Al-Suwailem

Aldawsari

2013

SPE Middle East Oil and Gas Show and Conference

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Over 70% of an onshore Saudi Arabian field maximum reservoir contact labeled wells are equipped with smart well completions; mainly to control undesirable effluent production. Several optimization best practices are routinely conducted through extensive sophisticated rate testing operations that are combined with the utilization of deployed intelligent devices. This entails the optimal setting of ICVs for ideal production and restriction of high gas or water laterals to determine their productivity indexes (PIs) and revive dead laterals. This paper documents the utilization of Netool in evaluating smart well contributions. A case study will be thoroughly discussed whereby a smart trilateral producer with flow meter log results exhibits unexpected flow contributions. Netool was used to evaluate the flow meter log to optimize the inflow control valve (ICV) settings. The model was validated with the actual flow rates of individual laterals. Moreover, Netool was utilized in evaluating and analyzing the current completion practices in terms of the spacing between the ICVs and the optimum blank pipe size.The results of the model contradict the flow meter log results. Several, rate tests were completed in the well resulting in more confidence in the model results. New proposed ICV settings balanced the flow rate and the pressure draw down between the three laterals. The paper will show that the greater the increase in the distance between the ICVs the greater the variance in the laterals contribution. The optimum spacing providing more balanced flow contribution came to be 300 ft. Sensitivity analysis was conducted over the blank pipe sizes, proving that a reduction of 40% pressure drop can be accomplished through having larger blank pipe between the ICVs from 3½" to 4½".

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Section: Current Optimization Methodology and Achieved Benefitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Pi Variationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Flow Contributions and Enhancing the Design of Smart Well Completions

Al-Muailu

Al-Suwailem

Aldawsari

2013

SPE Middle East Oil and Gas Show and Conference

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Downhole measurement (pressures and/or rates) is a virtual necessity for model history matching and calibration when seeking to use a proactivemanagement approach. Many of the early FCV installations in Saudi Arabia were not equipped with pressure gauges, and thus required rigorous testing of every lateral or segment to optimize performance (Mubarak et al 2009;Zarea and Zhu 2011;Al-Dossary et al 2012). Numerous examples of reactive well management exist, including cases in Shaybah where FCVs enabled the reduction of water cut or gas/oil ratio while maintaining or increasing oil production (Al-Dossary et al 2012).…”

Section: Maximum-and Extreme-reservoir-contact-wells Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many of the early FCV installations in Saudi Arabia were not equipped with pressure gauges, and thus required rigorous testing of every lateral or segment to optimize performance (Mubarak et al 2009;Zarea and Zhu 2011;Al-Dossary et al 2012). Numerous examples of reactive well management exist, including cases in Shaybah where FCVs enabled the reduction of water cut or gas/oil ratio while maintaining or increasing oil production (Al-Dossary et al 2012). Once again, the optimization process can be quite cumbersome because individual and commingled lateral tests are required at various FCV settings.…”

Section: Maximum-and Extreme-reservoir-contact-wells Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A significant contribution from laterals greater than 1 km in length is implied from performance data (Saleri et al 2003, Salamy et al 2008), but profile data for laterals drilled beyond this length, and in ML wells are sparse, with FCV installation precluding production logging in most instances. In addition, through the process of actuating valves in wells equipped with FCVs, dead laterals were discovered and were subsequently cleaned up (Al-Dossary et al 2012). Existing FCVs enabled cleanup in these cases, but there is no knowledge of the cleanup profile, leading to questions such as how much of the lateral-which in some cases exceeds 3 km in length-contributes to the flow?…”

Section: Maximum-and Extreme-reservoir-contact-wells Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Prototype Test of an All-Electric Intelligent-Completion System for Extreme-Reservoir-Contact Wells

Bouldin

Verma

Bellaci

et al. 2014

SPE Drilling &Amp; Completion

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One of the core focus areas in Saudi Aramco's effort to increase hydrocarbon recovery is in the application of extreme-reservoircontact (ERC) wells. These wells, with more than 20 km of reservoir contact, are needed to ensure fluid off-take points are distributed throughout the reservoir efficiently. Accurate sensing and control are crucial to the efficient sweep of heterogeneous formations. This paper describes a recent multilateral (ML)-well trial that validated a number of core technologies and methods required to make ERC a reality, including• Well construction and deployment practices to allow electrical umbilicals to be reliably deployed in openhole laterals• Deployment and testing of revolutionary low-power, infinitely positioned electric flow-control valves (FCVs) designed to be deployed in each compartment in an openhole segmented lateral completion• Validation of the fully integrated onboard-production-monitoring system providing direct downhole measurements of pressures, temperatures, flow rates, and water cut for each controlled compartment• Integration of the surface acquisition and monitoring system to the production supervisory-control-and-data-acquisition (SCADA) system to provide real-time downhole production information, as well as valuable system-health-status data that can ensure operational integrity during the life cycle of the well An ML well close to the oil/water-contact point was allocated to validate the functionality of two prototype systems installed and has provided valuable reservoir data for more than 1 year of production. The well trial successfully demonstrated the ability to install and retrieve an umbilical completion from a 10,000-ft horizontal lateral. The ability to control downhole flow to within a few barrels per day measured at the reservoir face is proving revolutionary to the way the operator will approach future reservoir management. The sensing system will be capable of delivering continuous compartment productivity. The SCADA integration allows for a real-time management function such that the compartment can be controlled to a target off-take rate directly, without resorting to the use of traditional well-system models for estimating control settings. This paper highlights the objectives, installation, validation, and functional aspects of this new ERC well system, as well as identifying some of the immediate production effects emerging from this level of visibility and control at the formation face.

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Numerical approach on production optimization of high water-cut well via advanced completion management using flow control valves

Ahn

Lee

Choe

et al. 2023

J Petrol Explor Prod Technol

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With the development of smart downhole control devices, such as the electric flow control valve (FCV), research on completion optimization using FCV control is gaining traction for successful field production management. Applying and verifying its applicability to actual assets with uncertain production issues occur are important. This study focuses on managing downhole devices to optimize fluid production in an actual onshore oil field in Alberta, Canada. The target field has been in production operation for over 20 years, and water flooding was used in the early stages of production to maintain reservoir pressure. However, according to the flow characteristics of the field, water injection caused a high water-cut issue due to water channeling. To mitigate the problem, proactive and reactive strategies were investigated to optimize FCV control. Additionally, the effect of completion optimization was estimated considering both the field-level economic value and the fluid production behavior at the device level. In most optimization cases, the cumulative water production could be reduced compared with the base case without valve control. Notably, the flow-balancing strategy increased the revenue of the target field by approximately 23 MM$ by maximizing oil production and suppressing water production. However, reactive and streamline-balancing strategies, which directly control and delay water production, undermined the economic value due to the decrease in oil production. The findings imply that FCV control strategy of suppressing only water production for the field with high water-cut could not be the optimal solution considering the reduction in oil production and the field’s revenue. The results of this study could be used as a reference to optimize downhole devices when applying water flooding in fields where high water-cut is expected.

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Production Gain and Optimization through the Implementation of Smart Well Completion Technology in Saudi Aramco, Case Study

Cited by 14 publications

References 5 publications

Evaluating Flow Contributions and Enhancing the Design of Smart Well Completions

Evaluating Flow Contributions and Enhancing the Design of Smart Well Completions

Prototype Test of an All-Electric Intelligent-Completion System for Extreme-Reservoir-Contact Wells

Numerical approach on production optimization of high water-cut well via advanced completion management using flow control valves

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