Well Management Strategy Through Integrated Production Modeling: Study Case Well B-5

Abstract

In conventional wisdom, operators of oil or gas fields with sandstone reservoirs often produce their wells under pressure drawdown limit to avoid sand control failure. Tiffin et al. (2003) reported that the recommended pressure drawdown is ranging from 500 psi to 1000 psi depends on the experience and analogue data for wells with installed sand control. However in their research, they shown that pressure drawdown is not an appropriate approach to avoid sand production. They introduce the concept of flux limit to replace pressure drawdown limit since velocity of produce fluid through sand screen is the main variable affecting sand control failure. Similar flux limit application also studied by Procyk et al. in 2015. As an object of this study, B-5 is the third development well in B field. The field consists of shallow multi-stacked sandstone reservoirs. As an implication of its shallow depth and good reservoir quality, Sand production is expected on the B field as observed in surrounding analogue fields. To mitigate sand production, sand control of fracpack and gravel pack was installed under five inflow control valves (ICVs) in B-5 well. In total 11 reservoir were commingle in those five ICVs where Each ICVs is equipped with pressure and temperature gauge in both inside tubing and annulus. On this research, dynamic simulation model in B-5 is coupled with well and surface facility model. Well management strategy through integrated production modeling approach is carried out to take into account backpressure from each production interval. Flux limit on sand screen can be updated continuously by considering the gas flow rate and depletion on reservoir pressure. This integrated study is important to create strategy of ICV open and shut-in condition to safely optimize well production by avoiding sand production while cover widest production range as possible as required by gas demands.