Delineation of Multi-Phase Wellbore and Formation Fluid Distribution in Abu Dhabi's Onshore Horizontal Wells

Abstract

Abu Dhabi's onshore oil fields are generally mature and contain carbonate reservoirs with light oil and gas. Various well types have been employed, such as vertical, highly deviated, and horizontal wells with cased hole or openhole completions. Surveillance of wellbore and formation fluid attributes is essential for reservoir management decisions and hydrocarbon production enhancement. This paper discusses surveillance techniques to understand multi-phase flow characteristics and reservoir saturation. Formation saturation monitoring and production profiling have been performed actively using pulsed neutron logging (PNL) and array production logging (APL) techniques. Challenges in employing the APL method in Abu Dhabi onshore fields include (1) many wells are horizontal with barefoot completions, (2) horizontal sections extend typically more than 2000-ft long with irregular and undulating trajectories, and (3) wells contain asphaltene, debris, and other materials preventing optimal spinner flowmeter functionality. After reviewing each well condition, well environment-specific combinations of APL, nuclear production logging applications for holdups and water velocity calculations, and an advanced three-phase formation saturation analysis technique were determined. This approach overcame several challenges to deliver surveillance objectives. We demonstrate four case examples, delineating well-based production and formation saturation profiles in various conditions. Two nuclear measurements exhibiting different sensitivities to oil and gas were combined to compute three-phase formation saturation. When a horizontal openhole wellbore was severely under-gauged, the pulsed neutron-based holdup application was used to avoid an APL tool deployment that might result in tool damage and unsatisfactory data acquisition. Additionally, for wells with good wellbore conditions, pulsed neutron-based and APL-based holdup data sets were acquired, and analysis results were compared. A stationary water velocity calculation method when water cut was high was also adopted to identify downhole water sources, and in-situ water production profiles from APL and nuclear applications were compared. An effort to evaluate production profile and in-situ saturation effectively from highly deviated- and horizontal wellbores to improve hydrocarbon production is described. The delineation of production profiles and formation fluid distribution allowed operators to determine reservoir and production management strategies.