Roncador Field Development: Reservoir Aspects and Well-Development Strategy

Abstract

This article, written by Technology Editor Dennis Denney, contains highlights of paper OTC 19296, "Roncador Field Development: Reservoir Aspects and Well-Development Strategy," by L. Cysne and M.K. Mihaguti, Petrobras, prepared for the 2008 Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, 5-8 May. The paper has not been peer reviewed. Roncador, a giant field in the deepwater Campos basin, was discovered in 1996. Field development involves an 111-km2 area and water depths from 1500 to 1900 m, with significant oil in place, different types of oil, and variations in geological characteristics. The development strategy comprises four modules. The first module, Module-1A, will produce reservoirs in the hanging wall of a large normal-fault structure. Modules-2, -3, and -4, will produce reservoirs in the footwall block. This paper presents key aspects of the reservoirs, drainage modeling and design, and the strategy for project implementation to overcome major reservoir uncertainties, such as fluid type, connectivity, and net-pay thickness. Introduction The Roncador deepwater oil field is approximately 125 km from the coast of São Tomé Cape, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil (Fig. 1). Reservoir depths range from 2900 to 3600 m below sea level. Roncador reservoirs are high-quality Cretaceous-age siliciclastic reservoirs with average porosity of 25% and average absolute permeability of 800 md. The field is divided into two large blocks separated by a major normal fault (Fig. 2), with oil gravity varying from 18 to 22°API in the footwall block and 28 to 30°API in hanging-wall block. The field resource volume is approximately 7.5 billion bbl. Estimated total recovery is 3.7 billion bbl of oil equivalent, with proven reserves of 3.0 billion bbl of oil equivalent. Module-1 started production in May 2000 through semisubmersible platform P-36. Unfortunately, in March 2001, P-36 sank. Module-1 was renamed Module-1A and was divided in two phases. Phase-1 production started at the end of 2002 with floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel Brasil. Phase 2 of Module-1A (P-52) and Module-2 (P-54), both with 180,000 BOPD capacity, started production at the end of 2007. Peak production of approximately 450,000 BOPD will occur by 2013, when all Modules (-1A, -2, -3, and -4) will be on production. The newest drilling and completion technologies were used to achieve the project goals: field development by constructing good-quality wells with low price in the short term. Technologies and other well-construction strategies that contributed to success in the Roncador development are detailed in the full-length paper.