The Dynamic-Static Coupled Full Field Optimization of ICD/AICD Completion for the Pilot Wells Selection and Design in N Oilfield Middle East

Abstract

Horizontal wells with open-hole completions are very common in N field Middle East, over 80% of the well completions are open-hole completions. However, in recent years’ production, some of the open-hole wells face several challenges from the perspective of reservoir management, such as early-stage water/gas breakthrough and inefficient drainage around the wellbore. These challenges are caused by the existence of high permeability streaks and the heel-to-toe effect. Therefore, aiming at these challenges, the present work proposed the lower completion strategy and established the lower completion workflow to implement inflow control devices (ICD) or autonomous inflow control devices (AICD) with packers, and selected some representative wells in N oilfield to find out the lower completion optimization results of the whole well life. The principles of screening and selecting the pilot candidate wells in the N field middle east are operable, duplicable, and valuable. The pilot wells need to be the representatives in both geology and engineering, scheduled to be drilled recently and able to be evaluated from numerical simulation. For the comprehensive production analysis, the static model was used for sensitivity study and optimization and the dynamic model was used for the full-field assessment. The sensitivity and uncertainty of design parameters include compartment length, nozzle size, cross-section area and flow coefficient. Then, the static model was coupled with the dynamic model to obtain the optimal lower completion settings of the whole well life. The dynamic sector model that included injection wells and production wells was derived from a full field model. By using the optimized ICD/AICD parameters and deploying the tools correctly based on reservoir heterogeneity, the reservoir performance such as water cut, gas-oil ratio and cumulative oil production can be obtained to validate the optimization results. Several cases were studied to demonstrate the production improvement and economic values with the optimized lower completion. It is shown that the cumulative oil production will increase, the production plateau will extend and the overall NPV will be higher. This work can give guidance to the selection of the most fit-for-purpose lower completion technology for different well objectives when facing different kinds of challenges.