New concepts of Dual-Completion for Water Cresting Control and Improved Oil Recovery in Horizontal Wells

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

1-1-2002

Abstract

The primary advantage of horizontal wells is the long penetration and small pressure drawdown. Thus, horizontal wells have been used for developing reservoirs experiencing severe water coning problems. However, several field experiences indicate that horizontal wells are also not free from the problem of water coning (otherwise known as water cresting). In some field reports, water breakthrough into horizontal wells could be quite dramatic and tend to erode the merit of high deliverability. Field experiences also indicate that the horizontal well fluid inflow profile is not uniform along the well but rather asymmetrically skewed toward the heel of the well. Thus water tends to breakthrough first at the heel (downstream end) and spread toward the toe-end (upstream end) of the well. In this paper, the authors present the result of a tool developed to effectively evaluate the problem of pressure loss in the wellbore and its effect on water cresting in horizontal wells. The tool incorporates the effects of several factors such as in-situ pipe roughness, perforation size and perforation density, axial fluid influx and two-phase oil-water flow. The results could be extended to three-phase flow by adequate gas-liquid correlations. The paper also presents a study of two innovative concepts of "smart" completions for controlling water cresting in horizontal wells: "tail pipe water sink" and "bi-lateral water sink". The technologies involve the segregated production of oil and water in a dual completion with zonal isolation. The results of this research using commercial numerical reservoir simulators indicate that dual completions are capable of reducing the incidence of by-passed oil at the toe of horizontal wells and improve oil recovery by over 7 percent.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Proceedings - SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition

First Page

757

Last Page

768

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