Coiled Tubing Gas Lift Design and Troubleshooting - Case History

Abstract

Abstract VICO Indonesia is an Oil and Gas company which has operated mature fields located in the onshore part of East Kalimantan which has been on production for over 30 years. The fields are dominated by gas reservoirs with a much lower presence of oil reservoirs. Production mechanisms cover from natural depletion to weak and strong water drive, particularly in some of the shallow areas. Recent well completions include single and dual slimhole monobore. The field is a perfect combination of stratigraphic and structural traps with more than 4000 sandstone reservoirs where around 450 of those are oil reservoirs. The oil recovery factor for these reservoirs is in the range of 10-30%. Oil development in this fields performed using gas lift as the main artificial lift while several wells still flowing naturally. Coiled tubing gas lifted (CTGL) wells contributes to 60-80% of current oil production of 8000 BOPD. Totally, 50 CTGLs have been installed in VICO Indonesia where most of those considered successful. The main problem found related with initial operation after installation. Lesson learned has been summarized including the design and the procedure for initial operation. Coiled tubing gas lift design and troubleshooting are rarely found in literature. Thus, this paper presents the detail step by step design and how to troubleshoot the possible failure during early operation. This approach exhibits a real benefit to recover more untapped hydrocarbon with more aggressive program.