Practical Solution for Rigless Water Shut off Without Using Thru- Tubing Bridge Plug in offshore Gas Lift Well, GUPCO - Egypt

Abstract

The Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company (GUPCO) is one of the main production Companies in Egypt. Most of production rate in GUPCO is dependent on gas lift method for lifting reservoir fluid to the surface. Many reservoirs in Gulf of Suez are depletion (solution gas drive); so GUPCO injects about 150,000 BWPD to compensate reservoir pressure, and GUPCO has several active water drive reservoirs which water increasing comes from bottom intervals in some cases. As the water cut increases in the well, water shut off (WSO) is required; based on production logging tool (PLT) data, to avoid water loading (backpressure on formation), allow low quality sand/ intervals to share in production, avoid corrosion of wellbore tubing, and scale build up in the tubing which may cost a lot of money for cleaning. In general, GUPCO uses thru-tubing bridge plug (TTBP) and capping it with sufficient length of cement column for rigless WSO. As all fields of GUPCO are offshore; so WSO and other jobs are costly in comparison to onshore fields. Based on this, any cost saving, innovation, or idea lead to maximize output in safe manner (e.g. increasing well production oil) is highly appreciated and recommended for execution. Water shutoff techniques are either mechanical methods or chemical methods. These methods can be used individually or together in one job. Mechanical methods are usually used in wellbore WSO, and chemical methods are used in near wellbore (NWB) for plugging perm zones or restricting water flow as relative permeability modifier (RPM) chemical. Water shut off selection depends on many factors as well deviation, well completion type, and others that should be taken in consideration. This paper details some of the challenges associated with performing conventional WSO using electric-line and how to overcome these challenges. For our interested case, there is no common thru-tubing bridge plug (TTBP) in the market can be set in 9 5/8" and pass through minimum tubing restriction (XN- nipple 2.63" ID). Therefore, the well was planned to perform WSO using CTU with high cost, which is low priority for the time being. The practical WSO method provides solution for these challenges with low cost, and high percentage of success.