An offshore Abu Dhabi carbonate oil field which was discovered in 1969 and put on production in 1985. The field produces from a reefal limestone formation deposited in the middle cretaceous. The field is characterized by good reservoir properties in the rudest banks well developed in the northern part of the field. Soon after production starts, wells water cut gradually increased to reach 50% within 4-5 years with drastic decline in oil production. Horizontal drilling was implemented with an objective of increasing well exposure to reservoir, reducing drawdown and as such combating water coning/channeling phenomena. Although oil production from horizontal wells was substantially improved, water production trend and production decline, however, did not change in most of the cases.
Reservoir heterogeneities, such as fractures and facies distribution, are believed to be main contributors to a water coning/ channeling phenomena and to the escalation of water production trends. Therefore, understanding of geological, petrophysical, properties of the formation is the corner stone for, controlling water production problems and hence improving reservoir performance. In this contest, the operating company decided in 2006 to acquire 3D seismic to improve the field imaging and embarked in intensive well data gathering program including, FMI, coring, VSP and PLT measurements to improves the knowledge about the reservoir.
This paper will illustrate an integrated approach to build a 3D fracture model of Reservoir-A using a comprehensive full set of geological drivers obtained from seismic attributes, core and logs data which may control and explain the fracture occurrence in the reservoir. The model was used to enhance the history match accuracy and help also to assess new potential ideas for future development.