Rocking with Insights of Rock & Fluids and Implementing MICRO Reservoir Management for Enhanced Efficiency & Excellence in Sabiriyah Mauddud, North Kuwait

Abstract

It is a global challenge to comprehensively understand the rock & fluids and the impact of interactions between them to fine tune development plans & strategy. Interpretative & qualitative factors often could lead to sub optimal plans & actions impacting the recovery efficiency. This uncertainty to be minimized, MICRO reservoir management is practiced to reap the benefits in terms of enhanced oil production & water flood efficiency. Sabiriyah Mauddud is a carbonate reservoir in North Kuwait with a massive development & production enhancement plan with water flood and eventually with EOR. Surprises in terms of rock & fluid (R-F) understanding influenced changes in the development plan in the past, some of such changes triggered major departures from the originally conceived plans. All major turnaround impacted by R-F insights have been reviewed, along with the mitigation plans adopted by the team. MICRO (Monitoring Integrating Communicating Re-vitalizing Orchestrating) is a new buzz concept, initiated by authors in the industry, to improve the overall excellence & efficiency. The concept has been implemented with associated workflow processes to optimize the water flood development. A typical diagnostics of the segment under water flood is done to illustrate the value of R-F understanding & reservoir management of the giant carbonate reservoir in North Kuwait. A comprehensive data acquisition, integration & interpretation plan helps in reducing the uncertainties while the reservoir is under active production & injection. Carefully planned appraisal programs have added insights to understand the relatively less-understood flanks. R-F and interactions understanding is augmented by laboratory studies & focused surveillance data. Additionally, MICRO proved to be the backbone for complete gamut of activities so as to reduce the uncertainties & gaps. The segment reviews led to many vital decisions on thief zones, fractures, re-circulation on injected water, connectivity between producers & injectors, actions on producers / injectors for conformance improvement and opportunities for oil gain with reduced water cut. Work flow processes have been standardized and validated with successful trials. R-F - Interaction linkage to water flood & production efficiency using MICRO approach is a proven way to manage a giant & complex carbonate reservoir in North Kuwait, the results of which are interesting & worth sharing with the global professionals.