Brownfield Performance Data Driven Analysis and Integration with Urban Planning to Generate Field Development Plan in a North Kuwait Multi-Stacked Giant Reservoir

Abstract

Abstract A mature and congested field with multi-stacked sandstone reservoirs has been developed through depletion drive for 50 years and more recently with peripheral water injection. Currently, the field performance shows rising water-cut in some reservoir units and pressure depletion in others, but still has significant remaining development potential. A field development plan has been established to economically produce bypassed oil, driven by the analysis of the historical performance data for the different reservoir units. Integrated analysis of historical data and development decisions identified the subsurface and operational drivers behind the increased water-cut and differential pressure depletion. This paved way for developing clear recommendations for the major development decisions on well and completion type, well spacing and waterflood strategy. Oil production type curves generated for each reservoir unit using recent infill drilling historical production data helped establish the preferred development phasing and production forecasts. Urban planning is a key enabler to realize value from the future development of the field due to surface congestion; therefore, the new wells have been allocated to multi well pads. The detailed analysis focused on each area of the field, complemented with saturation logs and dynamic model, helped in determining the long-term well requirements and their locations targeting bypassed oil. The integrated study generated a rolling development plan covering the field life cycle to accelerate oil production and reserves maturation and improve the reservoir pressure and sweep. Each new well has been assigned a primary reservoir target and a confidence level for the target reservoir to enable phased implementation of structured infill drilling to reduce well spacing starting with high confidence wells. New water injectors were added to the reservoir units that have limited aquifer support. Integration of the well pad allocation and development schedule with the pad construction schedule helped identify and mitigate against any surface related showstoppers to the planned well locations and the development schedule. As a result, more than 130 new development wells were added to accelerate oil production and increase production rates. This integrated study manifests the power, efficiency and value from brownfield data driven analysis to capture lessons learned from evolving wells and development concepts applied in a complex field over six decades. The workflow enabled the delivery of an updated field development plan and production forecasts within a year through utilizing data analytics to compensate for the recognized limitations of subsurface models. Urban planning and multi-well pad drilling concepts alleviate the impact of drilling constraints.