Hussain Zuyed Al-Ajmi

Integrated Reservoir Management Utilising a Portfolio Approach to Beat the Impact of Delayed Water Injection Projects - Opportunistic Strategic Alignment in North Kuwait

North Kuwait is blessed with multiple reservoirs stacked, Tuba at the shallowest and Ratawi at the deepest level. Water flood expansion was the key ingredient to provide the short term production assurance for the Asset. Field development activities have been progressing for two of the major stacked reservoirs with lion’s share of incremental production (Mauddud & Upper Burgan), assuming that these reservoirs will get the benefit of water injection, to cope up with the enhanced level of production. Unfortunately, the water injection projects have been delayed till the end of 2013, leading to rapid decline in reservoir pressures and erosion in the well performance of the producers (naturally flowing as well as on artificial lift). A comprehensive review of the portfolio of all reservoirs was made vis-a-vis the drilling/ workover activities. Complete history of pressure-production data for last 40 years was analyzed using OFM. The output from the reservoir simulation models was analyzed & discussed with multi-disciplinary teams. Aggressive surveillance & data integration plan was made and implemented to identify the focus areas, from where “new” production can be accelerated and / or controlled, adhering to the best reservoir management practice. Isochronal reservoir pressure maps were updated with full field static bottom hole pressure surveys. Detailed analysis of the RFT/ PLT data was performed to optimize the perforations at layers with high reservoir pressure. New wells from shallower reservoirs were deepened to the reservoirs enjoying the active water drive and accordingly, completed for short term production till the water injection expansion project is commissioned. Integrated reservoir management approach was followed throughout the gamut of field development activities with multi-skill expertize reviewing as peers for smart decisions. The paper’s objective is to share the integrated Reservoir management approach to beat the impact of delayed water injection projects on overall production portfolio, without compromising the technical requirement of voidage replacement ratio for depletion drive reservoirs with best practices approach.

Doubling the Production from a Mature Reservoir in North Kuwait-Challenges, Achievements & Lessons Learnt

Sabiriyah Lower Burgan is a clastic reservoir in North Kuwait on continuous production for the last 45 years. The reservoir, on active water drive, has its inherent problem of rapid increase in water cut, the production performance of wells declining drastically after water cut l evel of 40%. Many wells became idle in th e past, with overall well efficiency (ratio of flowing to total number of wells) of 60%. The formal strategy for production had been focused on “keeping the active perforations away from water”. Attempts were made in the past neither to install any artificial lift nor to have a campaign for water shut off/new technology applications.