ScaleProTect – Scale Deposition Modeling in Pre-Salt Reservoir

Abstract

The complexity of carbonate reservoir in pre-salt plays dictates the use of advanced inflow devices to enable optimized reservoir recovery. Intelligent Completions are considered one of the most effective systems for flow control for a production interval. Depending on the actual design and geometry of the intelligent completion tool, inorganic scale deposition can be very difficult to prevent and/or to mitigate. The failure of such equipment tools can cause severe production impairment and affect the entire field economics. In order to provide a high accuracy assessment of the scale deposition risk, a novel methodology involving scale deposition experiments and model generation has been developed. The proposed workflow combines 1D mechanistic methods to define scaling conditions, thermodynamic models to define the scaling tendencies at these conditions and 3D models to predict particles accumulation in complex geometries using numerical techniques describing the multiphysics interactions between solid particles and live fluids. The basis of the models will be presented in this article along with numerical results of the precipitation and deposition phenomena at downhole conditions. This work represents the first holistic approach to characterize scale build-up in the vicinity of inflow equipment walls. Numerical results are presented in this paper.