Technical Feasibility and Economic Benefit of using AICDs in Horizontal Well Completions of a North Sea Field

Research output: ThesisMaster's Thesis

Abstract

During the recent years installation of Inflow control devices completions has become more common in new wells. ICDs have proven to be an operationally simple and reliable completion solution. The primary benefits of installing ICDs are reduced water /gas production, increased hydrocarbon production and balanced inflow from the entire reservoir section. Recently, AICDs, the new generation of ICDs, have been employed successfully in few wells. AICD offers much better results in restricting less viscous unwanted fluid. This thesis considers the application of AICDs on the X_South field development in North Sea. The AICD completion design of the Well_X was made using NEToolTM and Eclipse TM simulators. Different well development strategies were considered in this work. A quick economic evaluation was carried out to estimate the economic benefits of the AICD completion design. A recommended completion set up of the well_X has been put forward. In the recommended completion set up AICDs, open hole packers and blank pipes has been used. The AICDs completion is enabling to reduce significantly the gas/water production. However, we were not able to increase the oil production but we succeed in keeping it almost unchanged. The sand management of the Well_X has been studied in this work. We investigate the use of open hole gravel pack along with AICDs. New techniques have been introduced by services companies to gravel packing horizontal well equipped with AICDs. However these techniques have been successfully used in wells with horizontal section less than that of well_X.

Details

Original languageEnglish
QualificationDipl.-Ing.
Supervisors/Advisors
  • Marschall, Christopher, Supervisor (external), External person
  • Hofstätter, Herbert, Supervisor (internal)
Award date26 Jun 2015
Publication statusPublished - 2015