Quantifying the Factors Impacting Production Performance in an Oil Well in Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Abstract

The performance of oil producing reservoirs decline with time, therefore production optimization will be required. In order to optimize oil production effectively, variety of scenarios and options should be considered, which would lead to a complex and time-consuming study.The purpose of this research was to identify and quantify the wellbore and reservoir parameters that can impact oil production performance. A parametric study was conducted on an oil well in Kurdistan Region of Iraq, by changing several wellbore and reservoir parameters individually, and calculate the resulted oil production rate. The results were analyzed by Nodal Analysis to identify the production performance of each case. Later, the results from the sensitivity analysis were examined by an empirical study to find the relationships between the wellbore and reservoir parameters and their effect on production rate. Finally, regression analysis was used as a statistical method to correlate between the change in wellbore and reservoir parameters and their impact on oil production performance.This study shows that different wellbore and reservoir parameters have different effect on oil production rate. By quantifying their impact and finding the cases with the highest oil production rate, production performance can be optimized effectively. The study concluded that tubing diameter, pay zone thickness, and reservoir permeability has significant impact, while drainage area and tubing roughness has insignificant impact on oil production performance. These results are quantified and turned into generic formulas which can be used for analyzing production performance of other oil wells.