Advanced Real-Time Analytics Allow Performing the Shallowest Injection Test Ever on the Norwegian Continental Shelf NCS – Rational, Planning, Execution and Results

Reservoirs in the Barents Sea are several times shallower than in other parts of the NCS, essentially due to recent uplift and erosion of younger sediments. A proper understanding of their geomechanics is considered paramount for their successful development. In turn, the lack of any available analogue makes the proper in situ measurement of key parameters compulsory. The paper describes the planning and execution of an appraisal well solely dedicated to the purpose of geomechanics data acquisition in the shallowest oil reservoir on the NCS – i.e. coring, logging, XLOT and injection testing. It focuses on the operations conducted in the oil reservoir itself, which included an entirely novel multi-cycle injection test aimed at estimating the large-scale thermal stress coefficient of the formations around the well – i.e. the impact of the injection temperature on the fracture pressure of the formations. Every operation in the well was challenging due to the sea depth being about twice that of the overburden thickness and to the formations being quite consolidated, which was met by careful iterative multidisciplinary-planning. The equipment was often taken to its limit and sometimes extended beyond its standard use – e.g. the metering systems. The injection test itself could not be performed traditionally – i.e. use of surface data and downhole memory gauge. Instead, the downhole gauge data were sampled, pumped out and transferred to a remote site where real time advanced analytics was used to ensure that safety criteria were always met throughout the operation in terms of vertical fracture propagation and lack of reservoir compartmentalisation. In addition, this allowed adjusting the planned injection schedule to the exact formation's response, which could not be fully quantified ahead of time. All the targets of the appraisal well were met. The injection test – i.e. the shallowest on the NCS and perhaps worldwide in an offshore environment – was performed successfully. Its main results are considered essential for a possible future field development – e.g. the injectivity is confirmed and, in addition, a significant thermal effect is proven. The series of novel technologies deployed in the extreme environment presented in the paper can easily and beneficially be extended to more traditional reservoirs. This concerns performing multi-cycle injection tests on appraisal wells on a systematic basis to prepare and optimise the development plan, real-time monitoring through advanced analytics and adjustment of these tests, start-up of injection wells during field development, monitoring and optimisation of water injection schemes, etc.