Overview: Production Operations (March 2005)

Abstract

There has been much debate about when individual countries and the world will peak in oil and gas production. It has been reported that brownfields accounted for less than 20% of the world’s oil production in 1982, but nearly 45% in 2002. A simple linear extrapolation suggests that by 2012, one-half of the world’s oil production will come from fields where production rates are declining. Generally, as a field matures and proceeds on its downward economic spiral, water-related problems escalate. This year, more than 40% of the nearly 100 papers reviewed for this feature were related to scaling and treatment. Many of these papers were from the Middle East, North Sea, and South American provinces. Implementation of innovative methods is needed to arrest declines and increase recovery factors. Production optimization has two main objectives. One is to increase maximum production while minimizing capital expenses. The second is to reduce the inevitable production decline of a field. One interesting case is that of the Sacroc field in west Texas. This field has produced under an enhanced-oil-recovery project for more than 30 years with a high decline rate. After infrastructure rejuvenation, new data-acquisition processes, innovative interpretation, and sound engineering management, considerable cost savings were accomplished in recent years, significantly curtailing the decline. One of the primary factors limiting production performance has been the lack of timely and reliable data analysis. A recent paper (SPE 87121) suggested that timely, reliable tools and training in the analysis of drilling data could be of great benefit to cost-effective drilling. The management of reliable real-time data from all segments of the oil and gas exploration and production process becomes a workflow-management challenge to make effective, relevant, and timely decisions. The uptake of credible emerging hardware advances technology and enhances the overall industry experience and learning curve. The Natl. Petroleum Council’s 2003 report suggested that higher prices and difficult resources should catalyze increased efforts in research, development, and application of technologies. This will be critical if the recovery factor of the inevitable brownfields is to be economically improved. Additional Production Operations Technical Papers Available at the SPE eLibrary: www.spe.org SPE 90430 - Successful Implementation of Resurgent Relative-Permeability-Modifier Technology in Well Treatments Requires Realistic Expectations SPE 88543 - Impact of Dynamic Simulation on Establishing Watercut Limits for Well Kickoff SPE 89837 - Cleanup of Water Blocks in Depleted Low-Permeability Reservoirs SPE 91041 - Web-Based Hosting of Multiassets and Multiusers: Production Workflows SPE 90792 - Integrated Process Improves Production of the Almond Formation in the Wamsutter Field, Wyoming: A Low-Permeability Case Study of 5 Years of Continuous Improvement in Well Performance