A Deepwater Openhole Gravel-Pack Completion With Prolonged Well Suspension Without Initial Cleanup: An Angola Block 15/06 Case History

Abstract

Summary Most of the deepwater reservoirs in Angola are weakly consolidated sands, requiring sand control, and openhole gravel packing is one of the most widely used sand-control techniques for producers; Block 15/06 is no exception (Hecker et al. 2004; Whaley et al. 2007; Pena et al. 2013; Menezes et al. 2013; Bingyu et al. 2016). High-inclination wells targeting multiple reservoir sections interlayered with reactive shales, relatively low fracture window, and prolonged well suspension without well cleanup were some of the challenges that needed to be addressed to ensure completion integrity and well productivity. This paper presents the measures taken during the design and execution phases to address the project challenges, along with an evaluation of completion integrity and well performance. Analysis of the downhole-gauge data is detailed for one of the wells as an example, illustrating the importance of downhole gauges in the completion.