Near-well simulation of oil production from a horizontal well with ICD and AICD completions in the Johan Sverdrup field using OLGA/ROCX

Abstract

One of the main principles of improving oil recovery is maximizing the contact area between the well and the reservoir. To achieve this purpose especially in reservoirs with a thin oil column, long horizontal wells are widely used today. However, there are some challenges related to horizontal wells like water coning towards the heel due to the heel-toe effect as well as early water breakthrough owing to heterogeneity along the well. In order to tackle these issues, passive inflow control devices (ICDs) and autonomous inflow control devices (AICDs) can be used. ICDs are able to balance the drawdown pressure along the horizontal well and as a result, postpone the early water breakthrough. By applying AICDs, in addition to postponing the early water breakthrough, water can be partially choked back autonomously, and the negative impacts of early water breakthrough will be attenuated. The Johan Sverdrup field (JSF) is a giant oil field located in the North Sea and production from this field has been started recently. Since there is a plan for developing this oil field in the near future, and a few studies have been done on this field so far, further studies are needed to obtain more cost-effective oil recovery in this field. The main objective of this paper is near-well simulation of oil production from the well 16/2-D-12 in the JSF by considering ICD and AICD completions. The simulation has been conducted based on the characteristics of the reservoir near this well for 750 days of oil production. OLGA in combination with ROCX has been used as a simulation tool. The simulation results showed that by applying both ICDs and AICDs the heel-toe effect, and heterogeneity along the well can be effectively handled and the water breakthrough time can be delayed by 255 days. Moreover, it was observed that by completion of the well 16/2-D-12 with AICDs, the accumulated water production can be reduced by 11.9% compared to using ICDs. In the same way, by using AICDs the flow rate of water production is reduced by 13.4% after 750 days. Furthermore, the results showed that using AICDs has a negligible impact on both the accumulated and the flow rate of oil production compared to using ICDs. Therefore, by completion of the well 16/2-D-12 with AICDs more cost-effective oil production can be achieved.