Manara Electric ICVs Control Extended-Reach Multizonal Well, Enabling 40% Incremental Oil | SLB

Manara electric ICVs control extended-reach multizonal well, enabling 40% incremental oil

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An operator wanted to optimize cleanup and production in all six zones of an extended-reach horizontal well passing through four reservoir segments with different permeabilities. Manara™ first-generation electric interval control valves (ICVs) equipped with sensors enabled selective, real-time flow measurement and control in each zone. They delivered a 40% oil increment by managing flow during cleanup to enable production from two damaged zones that would have been impossible to produce conventionally and reduced cleanup and production optimization time by at least 2 days.

Continuously optimize oil production without intervention

Extended-reach drilling (ERD) enables reservoir access with lower overall well construction costs and significant reduction of surface infrastructure costs and footprint. For example, drilling an extremely long horizontal well from a location on land can reduce costs by eliminating the much higher expense of building offshore platforms and managing subsequent logistics.

However, in long horizontal wells that produce from multiple reservoirs with different properties, uneven drawdown can hinder production and promote early gas or water breakthrough. In addition, high friction in the long horizontal causes a heel-to-toe pressure loss effect that exacerbates reservoir pressure differences.

For a new extended-reach well, an operator needed a strategy to optimize production from six zones in four reservoirs with dissimilar permeabilities and pressures. Earlier in the project, the operator had used conventional extended-reach completions composed of screens and passive inflow control devices (ICDs). Although the ICDs and nozzles were engineered for the expected reservoir conditions, uncertainty in estimated reservoir properties resulted in the wells experiencing early gas breakthrough. Because they did not have a monitoring system to provide better understanding of flow potential, the wells required multiple interventions to enable managing the production uncertainty.

For the new well, the operator wanted to address the uncertainties with active flow control and measurements to better characterize zone potential and drain oil without gas breakthrough. This would only be possible with a completion that could be installed to TD, deliver zonal measurements, and enable control from surface in real time. Consequently, six Manara electric ICVs equipped with sensors for measuring water holdup, fluid flow rate, pressure, and temperature at the formation face were installed in the well.

Graph showing effects of cleanup and choke optimization on zonal production.
(1) On initial cleanup, Zones 3 and 4 contributed no oil production. (2) To clean up those zones, the engineers choked back Zones 5 and 6. (3) After the damaged zones started to flow, all valves were opened fully to determine initial production. (4) Finally, optimizing the valve settings resulted in 25% higher production compared with scenario (3).
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