Re-Birth of a Mature Carbonate Gas Pool

Carr, Kristina; Fiori, M.

doi:10.2523/88773-ms

Cited by 3 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…These adverse reservoir conditions may have been reduced through time at GU1 owing to its fifteen-year history of processing hydrocarbon liquids from produced raw gas and subsequent re-injection of by-product lean, sweet gas. Over this period of gas cycling, the concentration of H 2 S at GU1 has been reduced from its original value of 17.7 percent to as low as 4 percent in some areas (Carr and Fiori, 2004), and correspondingly, the retrograde tendencies and corrosive properties of the reservoir interval have possibly been diminished.…”

Section: Reserve Estimates and Recovery To Datementioning

confidence: 98%

“…As such, the recovered gas to date suggests a recovery factor (RF) that is well below both the 77 percent producible gas RF for Kaybob South field and the 87 percent average producible gas RF for the other four largest Beaverhill Lake A gas pools of central Alberta that are anticipated by the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (Table 3). Potential limitations to recovery efficiency at GU1 include the sour, retrograde nature of the reservoir interval, and the potential for reservoir and borehole damage from the accumulation of mineral precipitants (scale) during production (Carr and Fiori, 2004). The corrosive nature of the sour reservoir fluids often compromises wellbore mechanical integrity, and the reduction of pressure near the wellbore may reduce reservoir permeability by inducing the precipitation of hydrocarbon liquids and various mineral precipitants within effective pore space.…”

Section: Reserve Estimates and Recovery To Datementioning

confidence: 99%

“…These factors have historically impacted both the life and reservoir drainage efficiency for wells across Kaybob South field, and have required a downspace well density as great as 4 wells per 259 hectares (640 acres) in portions of the field, i.e. as wells and/or reservoirs were damaged prior to complete reserves depletion, new offset wells were drilled to assist in the capture of otherwise bypassed reserves (Carr and Fiori, 2004). These adverse reservoir conditions may have been reduced through time at GU1 owing to its fifteen-year history of processing hydrocarbon liquids from produced raw gas and subsequent re-injection of by-product lean, sweet gas.…”

Section: Reserve Estimates and Recovery To Datementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The initial phase of gas injection at GU1 was followed by gas depletion in 1983 ( Figure 3). Gas cycling at GU2 and GU3 began in 1970 and 1972, respectively, and culminated with gas depletion in 1990 (Carr and Fiori, 2004). With all three units, gas depletion coincided with the transition from active field development to more passive "harvest mode" management and depletion (Carr and Fiori, 2004).…”

Section: Introduction Background and Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Although only an estimated 2000 (seven percent) of the 30,000 total gas pools that occur within the Alberta portion of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) were discovered prior to 1970, they contribute approximately 424,753 x 10 6 m 3 (15 trillion ft 3 ), nearly 40 percent, of the remaining recoverable gas reserves. Most of these "mature" fields are no longer under active development, but rather, are being depleted by existing wellbores without additional drilling investment (Carr and Fiori, 2004). Pools associated with Devonian strata account for 27 percent of the total in-place gas reserves within the WCSB (Reinson et al, 1993), and 593 (95 percent) of the 626 pools within the 40 largest Devonian gas fields were discovered prior to 1970 (Oldale and Munday, 1994).…”

Section: Introduction Background and Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

A case for renewed development of a mature gas field: the Devonian Swan Hills Formation at Kaybob South field, Alberta, Canada

Atchley

Cleveland

West

2007

Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology

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Section: Reserve Estimates and Recovery To Datementioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Reserve Estimates and Recovery To Datementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Reserve Estimates and Recovery To Datementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introduction Background and Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Introduction Background and Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

A case for renewed development of a mature gas field: the Devonian Swan Hills Formation at Kaybob South field, Alberta, Canada

Atchley

Cleveland

West

2007

Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology

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Over Four Decades' Experience With Gas Dewatering at Naturally Fractured Gas Reservoirs in South-Sichuan, China, What Have We Learned?

Tang¹

2015

SPE/IATMI Asia Pacific Oil &Amp; Gas Conference and Exhibition

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Early water breakthrough occurs frequently in naturally fractured gas reservoirs. To minimize the impact on gas production, gas dewatering technology has been applied successfully since 1969 in South-Sichuan gas sector, China. During past over 40 years, gas dewatering technology has been utilized in 326 naturally fractured gas pools, including pilot tests at individual wells and field wide applications in entire gas reservoirs at both initial geopressured and late pressure-depleted development phases, forming systematic and mature practices. This paper presents and analyzes five typical, innovative dewatering practices: 1). Water and gas production simultaneously from updip wells in massive gas reservoirs with weak edge water. 2). Gas production in updip wells while water production from downdip wells with strong bottom water drive. 3). Water and gas production simultaneously in downdip wells in geopressured formation below gas/water contact. 4). Combination of water/gas co-production in downdip wells near gas/water contact and pure gas production in updip wells 5). Newly drilled horizontal wells located below gas/water contact are used for water and gas co-production, in order to bring updip, prolific, and watered-out gas wells back production. The results are that production decline trends in gas pools at different stages have been arrested and flattened out, offsetting previous double-digit decline. The best field case is plateau production rate sustained for eight years without additional drilling, with peak off-take rate of above 8%, relatively stabilized flowing wellhead pressures, gas flow rates and gas/water ratios. The paper also addresses some of the lessons learned and the criteria of the optimal practice for selecting and designing gas dewatering technology.

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The Technical and Economic Challenge of "Mature Gas Fields": The Giant Altmark Field, a German Example

Rückheim¹,

Voigtlaender²,

Stein-Khokhlov³

2005

All Days

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"Mature" fields today account for over 70% of the worldwide oil and gas production. In view of the increasing global demand for fossil fuels during the next decades, it is the task of the E&P industry to develop innovative and cost effective technologies to substantially increase the rate of recovery from today's average of 35% to over 50% for oil and from about 70% to over 80% ultimate recovery for gas. To achieve this goal it will be necessary to optimise the efficiency of operation and maintenance while minimizing environmental impact. In addition to the exploitation of new technologies the industry needs to be open minded for modern management techniques and new business models in order to keep control of the technical and economic risks. The successful integration of various new technologies will have a major effect on the reserve renewal rate as 1% increase in recovery would provide an additional 2 years of supply. Main focus will be on the presentation of the giant and mature Altmark gas field - with 9.4 Tcf GIIP the biggest gas field in Germany - which has currently reached a recovery factor of 78%. It will be shown how the operator, EEG, is applying various technologies and an alternative business model to constantly increase the field life and hence reserves. Due to the field specifics, e.g. high temperature, constantly decreased reservoir pressure and high formation water salinity, the main operational challenges the operator is facing are rock stability, water lifting, scales removal and remediation of formation damage, a variety of reserves development and maintenance methods are applied like sidetracks and chemical treatments with surfactants and polymers, respectively. Apart from presenting the range of well treatment and monitoring technologies, another important topic which will be presented in this paper is the economic approach to efficiently handle the compartmentalised brownfield reservoir and production issues that allow the expected ultimate recovery to exceed 80%. Introduction Over the last decade, the oil and gas industry - apart from the need of replenishing reserves through exploration activities- has put increasing efforts into the development of a variety of new technologies to unlock reserves in mature fields (mature fields are generally defined as oil and gas fields in a state of declining production having passed their peak production level according to the ATW on "Field Management of Mature Reservoirs", often synonymous to brownfields). This is simply due to the circumstance that 67 to 72%[1] of today's hydrocarbon production originate from this field category and hence represent a significant resource for the worlds increasing energy demand. Besides the need to introduce advanced technologies, the oil and gas industry has been also facing the challenge to increase cost efficiency of their maturing assets in order to compensate for the declining production level and the high level of fixed costs. This paper is intended to present a brief overview of the different approaches the operators of mature fields have taken in order to increase ultimate recovery beyond average. The main focus will be on the presentation of tools EEG has been applying in the giant Altmark gas field—both the successful and unsuccessful ones—in order to increase recovery beyond 80%. In addition it will be demonstrated which recent but yet untested technological and business approach EEG is taking to potentially extend field life.

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Re-Birth of a Mature Carbonate Gas Pool

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

A case for renewed development of a mature gas field: the Devonian Swan Hills Formation at Kaybob South field, Alberta, Canada

A case for renewed development of a mature gas field: the Devonian Swan Hills Formation at Kaybob South field, Alberta, Canada

Over Four Decades' Experience With Gas Dewatering at Naturally Fractured Gas Reservoirs in South-Sichuan, China, What Have We Learned?

The Technical and Economic Challenge of "Mature Gas Fields": The Giant Altmark Field, a German Example

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