Strategies for Squeezing Co-Mingled Wells in the Same Flow Line in Sub-Sea and Deepwater Environments - Guidelines for Scale Inhibitor Selection and Effective Treatment Strategies and Design

Abstract

As the oil and gas industry continues to operate in more complex and deeper water environments downhole scale control via scale squeeze treatments becomes an ever-increasing technical challenge. It is therefore essential that effective scale management strategies are adopted which incorporate suitable scale inhibitor (SI) selection, analysis and treatment design procedures to provide optimal and cost-effective squeeze treatment lifetimes to maximise oil production and reduce well intervention costs. In this paper key factors are evaluated in order to provide a guidance to selecting a suitable treatment strategy for downhole scale control in co-mingled sub-sea well and the impact of chemical retention, minimum inhibitor concentration (MIC), limit of quantifiable detection (LOQD) and well dilution factors on treatment design and strategy are discussed. The pros and cons of different treatment strategies are presented in this paper and consideration is given to following three treatment strategies: Treating all wells with the same chemical and over designing the chemical treatment lifetime ie 18 months and then re-treating all wells after 12 months;Treating individual wells with tagged versions of the same scale inhibitor chemical;Treating individual wells with different scale inhibitors. Options (ii) and (iii) offer the ability to design similar treatment lifetimes for each well but have the flexibility to monitor wells individually and re-squeeze when required. Examples are provided for treatment options (ii) and (iii) based upon a field example to illustrate the design concepts for fluorescent (F) and phosphorus (P) tagged polymers in two co-mingled wells and a theoretical example for treating three co-mingled wells with different scale inhibitors, one of which could be a phosphonate with two tagged polymers. This paper presents an overview of the key factors that influence chemical selection and treatment design for co-mingled wells in the same flow line. In addition, it will highlight important concepts to provide guidance for the design of effective treatment strategies for squeezing co-mingled wells in sub-sea and deepwater environments.