Development of Hybridized Completion for Extended Reach Horizontal wells

Production and injection in long horizontal wells pose many challenges to operating companies right from drilling, production optimization, flow assurance to reservoir management. Horizontal wells are subject to ineffective well clean up, non-uniform stimulation and difficulties in managing sand production problems. Water injectors suffer from inability to achieve uniform distribution of water into all zones due to heterogeneity and unintentional thermal fracturing. In heterogeneous and fractured reservoirs that do not have any flow controller in place will undergo excessive flooding in high permeability zones while the lower permeability zones will receive little or no fluid. In order to negate some of the adverse reservoir properties and to control the flow profile of injection and production fluids, down hole flow control devices are of great advantage which regulate the flow in a way that gives a uniform flow, improved reservoir sweep, improved productivity from the tail section of the well and reduced water or gas cut.;With the help of dynamic reservoir modeling and utilizing ICD (Inflow Control Device) integrated completion designs to balance the influx of a producing well or the outflux in an injection well balances the movement of fluids between a well pair. ICDs can thus provide noticeable benefits in terms of delayed water breakthrough, optimized injection rate, and increased ultimate oil recovery. Not only oil producers, but water injectors that have ICD-integrated completions have proven their role in delaying water breakthrough and thus lowering the water cut over time. However ICD completion adds major cost to the well completion and may not be economical in many marginal reservoirs. On the other hand simple slotted line may not be effective in regulating in or out flow. Preengineered slotted liners with unevenly distributed slots may be a cost effective solution and alternative to ICD completion.;In this study, the main challenges related to maximum reservoir contact wells are presented. A combination of dynamic and static modeling of different types of completion designs are investigated. The following completion scenarios are considered for investigation in this research and compared in terms of technical and economical suitability in order to select the optimum completion design for the targeted well placed in a carbonate reservoir located in the offshore of Abu Dhabi: • Pre-perforated liner (PPL), • Limited Entry Liner (LEL), • Inflow Control Device integrated completion (ICD), • Combination of ICD with LEL.;In order to meet the above objectives, a specific dynamic modeling of heterogeneous reservoir is run using Empower(TM) software. The static modeling is done using Netool(TM) to configure the optimum completion design for an extended horizontal well of 3000 m reservoir contact. Both the dynamic and static modeling are done simultaneously coupling the dynamic and static simulation programs. This analysis compares the well performance profiles for the extended horizontal well completed with slotted liner, limited entry liner, and ICD integrated completion with different ICD configurations and distributions.;During the workflow of this project, a new design was created combining the ICD integrated and the slotted liner designs. Economic analysis was conducted for all four design strategies in order to determine the most economically effective scenario. Two of the proposed scenarios showed better results technically and economically. Those scenarios are the engineered limited entry liner and the ICD integrated completion.