Modeling of Equalizer Production System and Smart Well Applications in Full-Field Studies

Authors: Dr. Ho-Jeen Su and Dr. Ali H. Dogru

ABSTRACT
Equalizer production systems and inflow control devices are used to mitigate water or gas coning problems for mature fields. We have developed new modeling methods to simulate equalizer and interval control valve (ICV) performance in fullfield multimillion cell reservoir models under a parallel computational environment. We present single-well performance predictions with and without an equalizer, and the results are significantly different in some cases. Full-field modeling with equalizers and ICV controls for several examples has been conducted. In such cases, many individual wells would have significantly improved performance. At the full-field level, however, using equalizers or smart well applications without total field optimization would not improve performance much, for reasons we will discuss. The frictional pressure loss across an equalizer can be considered as a skin, and we have developed an analytical well equation to include it. With this theoretical development, it is now possible to confirm or monitor equalizer performance in terms of pressure drop from pressure transient analysis.

INTRODUCTION
With high oil prices prevailing, producers are more willing than ever to buy advanced wellbore equipment to improve well performance1, 2, 3. Figure 1 illustrates an equalizer production system, sometimes called an inflow control device (ICD). At sandface, fluids are forced to go through some kind of flow-restriction mechanism before entering the production tubing. Flow restriction is achieved by different means, such as spiral channels and a narrow-gauge orifice to artificially generate an extra frictional pressure drop at chosen downhole

locations where high water cut or gas-oil ratio (GOR) occur. Current equalizer production systems are built into the tubing or casing and cannot be adjusted or moved once installed. Since the exact well completion interval where high water cut or GOR will occur cannot be predicted, most manufacturers recommend a uniform design, e.g., an equalizer device every 40 ft or 80 ft. A uniform design, they claim, has a selfregulating function, whereby high-producing zones will be cut back automatically to allow higher influx from low-producing zones. We will prove, however, that equalizer placement can be optimized to have a more uniform production profile if the reservoir permeability along the wellbore can be quantified by means of an open hole flow meter survey shortly after drilling. Gamma ray log, Drillstem Testing (DST) tests, and Modular Formation Dynamics Tester (MDT) tests will also provide useful permeability data. In general, equalizer application can result in a more uniform production profile, with better reservoir drainage for a very long horizontal well penetrating multiple isolated compartments. Some field trials have shown that equalizer application can improve the well productivity index (PI). In theory, this observation does not reflect reality, because an equalizer will introduce extra pressure losses, causing the total pressure drawdown for a given rate to be greater than before. The only reasonable explanation for improved PI is a formation damage cleaning effect, i.e., equalizer application promotes

BSV 7 32# Tubing 95/8 53.5# Casing Packer ICV 7 25# Liner 41/2 13.5# Tubing Perforations Packer Packer Perforations Packer Perforations

ICV

Perforations

Fig. 1. Equalizer production system configuration (SPE 1018952).

Fig. 2. Interval control valve (ICV) system (SPE 642803).

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flow from low production (damaged) zones, thus helping remove debris from drilling mud and completion fluids. A typical smart well application for multilateral wells is to control lateral flow rates by a downhole choke, Fig. 2. If water cut or GOR values exceed a preset value in any lateral, then the downhole choke will be controlled remotely to cut down production in the affected lateral. For horizontal wells, we can group completion intervals into different sections. As in laterals control, the section ICV will reduce production if a given section registers a high water cut or GOR value. If the well performance does not improve after several ratereduction actions, the operator may shut down production completely for a given lateral or section if the economical limit such as 95% water cut is reached.

Due to the extra frictional pressure loss across the equalizer, the above equation should be modified as (4) To further derive our final equation, we introduce a fractional oil flow factor, Fo. (5)

And qo is the product of qm and Fo. qm represents the mixture (total) fluid flow rate at a well block. Then Eqn. 1 can be expressed as (6) By inserting Eqn. 6 into Eqn. 4 and setting, we have ,

MATHEMATICAL FORMULATION
The key of our formulation is to combine the pressure loss (across equalizer) equation with the conventional well equation. The resulting well equation has greater numerical stability due to the fact that we solve them simultaneously. The pressure loss equation for fluids through an equalizer system is

(7) And its solution is

(1) where subscript cons represents constriction. Vc is the mixture fluid velocity flowing through a constriction such as a nozzle, and it can be calculated as total fluid production rate divided by the constriction area. For a nozzle-type equalizer, the constriction area is a product of the number of equalizers in a completion interval or well block, the number of nozzles per equalizer device, and the effective flow area per nozzle. pm is mixture density, and Cv is dimensionless frictional coefficient. If the frictional loss is generated mostly by spiral channels, then there is no analytical equation available to predict its magnitude accurately. We can use curve fitting of the lab or field data to fit into Eqn. 1 for an approximate Cv value. In our test we proved that this curve fitting approach can predict the pressure losses very closely to field data. Typically, the velocity in oil field application is subsonic, and Eqn. 1 is valid in that velocity range. The well-known conventional well equation, defined by Peaceman4, for oil rate at a given well block (completion) is (2) where Pr is well block pressure, Pw is wellbore tubing flowing pressure, and h is the depth difference between the well block center and well pressure reference depth. Oil phase PI can be expressed as (3)

(8)

The above equation is used in the parallel reservoir simulator5. Similar equations can be derived for water- and gas-phase flow rates. These new well equations are then solved simultaneously with the reservoir cell mass balance equations. This new approach has been applied to a dual porosity/dual permeability system and the equations are further enhanced to account for separate contributions from matrix and fracture, respectively as described in Appendix A. Equation 8 is derived for a single well completion or well block, and we need to add up all the well blocks in a well to satisfy user-specified total well oil rate. If the unit is in surface conditions, then the formation volume factor needs to be added in the equation. We also consider the frictional pressure drop inside the tubing, and the well-block-to-well-block pressure changes will include density variation, depth difference, acceleration term due to influx momentum changes, and the tubing flow frictional pressure drop. All the physics are included in an inner iterative downhole network calculation at the beginning of each outer Newton-Raphson iteration of a simulation timestep. The details of the frictional loss calculation in tubing between well blocks can be found in references 6 and 7. Since we incorporate the equalizer frictional loss into the new well equation, the flow rate and the equalizer frictional pressure drop are calculated at the same time. Trying to solve

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Oil Rate, STB/D

them in sequential order, we would experience oscillation problems. Actually, the pressure drop across the equalizer can be viewed as a rate-dependent skin. Equation 4 can be expressed in another way following the work of van Everdingen8, and the solution is (9)

w/o Equalizer

700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 0 16 32 48

w/ Equalizer Optimized

where SM and Se represent the mechanical skin (due to formation damage) and the skin due to the equalizer. (10) Equations 9 and 10 are useful to interpret multiple-rate buildup tests of an equalizer equipped well. We can validate the experimental pressure drop data provided by equalizer manufacturers at in-situ conditions. The equalizer performance curve or correlation formula provided by manufacturers may be obtained at lab ambient conditions and be inaccurate if applied to field analyses. Using a spreadsheet, we have confirmed that Eqns. 8 and 9 are mathematically identical, i.e., both will give a same solution.

64

Completion number
Fig. 4. Oil production profile comparison after one year production, case 1.

350

Equalizer Spacing, ft

300 250 200 150 100 50 0 0 16 32 48 64

SINGLE WELL CASES

Before proceeding to the section of full-field studies, it is worthwhile to evaluate single well performance to get insight into equalizer performance. In all cases in this article, we refer to an orifice-type equalizer with four nozzles per housing and a 2.5 mm nozzle diameter. Case 1 consists of a horizontal producer in a five layer model (30 115 5) with a square cell dimension of 100 ft and an average layer thickness of 10 ft. A parallel horizontal water injector is located 1 km away from the producer, Fig. 3a. The producer has a total open completion of

Completion number
Fig. 5. Optimized equalizer spacing, case 1.

Color bar in md

S w color bar

(a) permeability

(b) water saturation

Fig. 3. Permeability variation in top layer and associated water saturation results at the end, case 1.

6,400 ft and the heel is at the north. The injector is about 500 ft long. Both injection and total liquid rates are specified at 9,000 stock tank barrels per day (STBD). Maximum injection pressure is 7,000 psi and minimum bottom-hole flow pressure for the producer is 1,500 psi. Although all five layers have very different permeabilities, permeability variation within each layer is moderate. Figure 3a shows the permeability distribution in the top layer, in which both wells are completed. The cumulative oil production with and without equalizers does not differ much at the end of a simulated 20 year run. Figure 3b shows the water front position at the ending time. Initial equalizer spacing is 40 ft, that is, one equalizer installation for every 40 ft completion. As shown in Fig. 4, the initial equalizer spacing does not provide adequate flow resistance, so that the production profile does not differ much from the case without an equalizer. Fewer equalizers are required for high-flow completion intervals to reduce the available flow area and thus generate more resistance. An optimization algorithm is used to generate varying equalizer spacing along the wellbore as shown in Fig. 5. With this optimized design, the production profile becomes more uniform as shown in the black solid curve in Fig. 4. The cumulative oil production of the optimized case is not better than in the base design. In view of these disappointing results, we wonder whether the success of equalizer applications may depend on the degree of geological heterogeneity.
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800 700
w/o equalizer

Oil rate, STB/D

600
with equalizer

500 400 300 200 100 0 0 16 32 48 64

(a) permeability

(b) water saturation

Completion number

Fig. 6. Permeability variation and associated water saturation results at the end, case 2.

Fig. 8. Oil production profile comparison after one year production, case 3.

1500

Water rate, STB/D

w/o equalizer

1000
with equalizer

500

0 0 16 32 48 64

(a) permeability

(b) Sw,w/o ICD

(c) Sw,with ICD

Completion number
Fig. 9. Water production profile comparison after one year production, case 3.

Fig. 7. Water saturation distribution comparison, case 3.

Number of Equalizers

Equalizers Spacing ft None 40 80

Cum Oil Prod MMSTB 11.52 11.56 11.58

None 160 80

Cum Water Prod MMSTB 44.83 43.97 42.97

Cum Injection MMSTB 60.41 59.59 58.72

Number of Equalizers

Equalizers Spacing ft None 40 80

Cum Oil Prod MMSTB 5.779 7.0 8.384

None 160 80

Cum Water Prod MMSTB 60.2 59.01 57.62

Cum Injection MMSTB 66.01 66.01 66.01

Table 1. Equalizer spacing sensitivity in case 2

Table 2. Equalizer spacing sensitivity in case 3

In case 2, we purposely add two fracture strips near the injector represented by a tenfold increase in permeability as shown in Fig. 6a. Figure 6b shows the water front after 20 years and it has advanced less relative to case 1, Fig. 3b, due to more water production at the heel in case 2. Again, the cumulative oil production increment due to equalizer application is small, Table 1. Please note that the water injection amount is reduced with the use of an equalizer due to the fact that the flow resistance around the producer increases the reservoir pressure. Therefore, the injector is subjected to the maximum injection pressure constraint longer.
40

In case 3, Fig. 7a, we increase the width of the two fracture strips and the permeability increase factor becomes 100x. After 20 years the water front with equalizer application, Fig. 7c, travels further than the water front without an equalizer, Fig. 7b. The impact of an equalizer increases with greater geological heterogeneity. Table 2 shows significant benefits in cumulative oil production from the equalizer application. Figures 8 and 9 show the impact of 80 ft equalizer spacing in improving oil and water production profiles after one month of production, respectively.

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Number of Equalizers

Equalizer Spacing ft None 40 80

Cum Oil Prod MMSTB 13.61 13.62 13.65

None 160 80

Cum Water Prod MMSTB 31.80 31.74 31.61

Cum Injection MMSTB 47.93 47.89 47.77

Table 3. Equalizer spacing sensitivity in case 4

Fig. 12. Permeability distribution of two slices, sector model, case 5.

Fig. 10. Water saturation results after nine years, case 4. Fig. 13. Initial water saturation of two slices, sector model, case 5.

Fig. 11. Initial water saturation of a sector model (transparent 3D view), case 5.

Fig. 14. Water saturation of two slices after 25 year production, sector model, case 5.

In case 4, we rearrange the well paths for both wells. The geological data are the same as in case 3. As shown in Fig. 10, the producer becomes a slant well with completions in all layers except the fourth. The injector moves to the opposite end of the bottom layer. Figure 10 shows the water front after nine years. Table 3 shows little improvement in cumulative oil production from the equalizer application after 20 years. This case demonstrates that equalizer efficiency is well path dependent.

SECTOR MODEL CASES

Figure 11 shows a sector model (44 44 100) of case 5 with 18 vertical wells and two horizontal wells. The square cell dimension is about 290 ft and the average vertical layer thickness is about 3 ft. The 100 layer definition gives very adequate vertical geological description, which is crucial to obtain an accurate prediction of water encroachment. Fluid flux terms to the sector model are generated by full-field simulation runs to ensure consistency between sector and

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16000 14000

Qo, with ICD Qo, w/o ICD Water cut, with ICD Water cut, w/o ICD

100 80 60 40 20 0 2005

200

Pressure drop, psi

Oil rate, STB/D

10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 1980

Water cut, %

12000

150

100

50

DP, ICD Draw Down

0 0 2 4 6 8 10 12

1985

1990

1995

2000

Time
Fig. 15. Well E1 performance comparison, sector model, case 5.

Completion number
Fig. 17. Pressure drop profiles from drawdown and ICD, sector model, case 5.

Gas Saturation
2500
w/o ICD

2000

with ICD

Oil rate, STB/D

1000 500

0 0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Z (depth)

1500

Completion number
Fig. 16. Production profile comparison, sector model, case 5.

X
Fig. 18. Gas coning occurrence, sector model, case 6.

full-field models. Two horizontal wells are used to investigate the effectiveness of an equalizer to a natural edge-water encroachment case. Each horizontal well is slightly slanted, penetrating about 10 vertical layers, and the well length is about 3,200 ft. The well target is set at 15,000 STBD total liquid rate subject to 1,500 psi minimum bottom-hole flowing pressure constraint. The permeability and initial water saturation distributions of two slices intercepting the horizontal wells are shown in Figs. 12 and 13. Figure 14 shows the water front advance after 25 years of production. Equalizer spacing is set at 80 ft. Figure 15 shows modest gain in oil rate if the equalizer is installed for well E1. Cumulative oil production improves from 58.7 million stock tank barrels (MMSTB) to 60.9 MMSTB. The equalizer generates at least 2.2 MMSTB extra oil benefit, providing an excellent rate of return for the equipment investment. The second horizontal well has less of an oil gain at about 1.3 MMSTB. The total sector model oil gain is about 3.4 MMSTB. It implies that vertical well performance does not deteriorate from the equalizer installation for horizontal wells. Figure 16 shows the production profile comparison after five months of production, and the dashed line indicates that the equalizer does generate a more uniform profile. Figure 17 shows a corresponding drawdown pressure drop and ICD pressure
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4
w/o ICD

GOR, MSCF/STB

with ICD

0 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Time
Fig. 19. GOR comparison, sector model, case 6.

drop along the wellbore. The drawdown pressure drop is between the reservoir cell pressure and the pressure at the sandface prior to entering ICD. The total pressure drop between reservoir pressure and downhole wellbore flowing pressure is the sum of the above-mentioned two pressure drops in Fig. 17. Case 6 was built to study the ICD influence to gas coning. One horizontal well was moved upward just beneath the original gas cap, Fig. 18. Other conditions are the same as in case 5. Simulation results show that there is no significant

difference in oil recovery and GOR between runs with and without ICD. Both runs experience immediate gas coning. Again, we tried to modify permeability to observe the ICD effect and a fracture was created from the middle of the well to the gas cap above. The fracture addition amplifies the ICD effect, Fig. 19, in which the GOR values in the run with ICD become much lower. Please note that gas coning still occurs shortly after production for both runs. Figure 18 shows the gas saturation distribution at the occurrence of gas coning in the ICD case.

FIELD TEST CASES

Fig. 20. Water encroachment in full-field study, case 7.

Fig. 21. ICV for multilateral well (SPE 992811), case 7.

16000

100

12000
oil rate, ICV oil rate, w/o ICV water cut, ICV water cut, w/o ICV

60 40 20 0 2030

8000

4000

0 2005

2010

2015

2020

2025

Time Time

Fig. 22. Smart multilateral well performance comparison, full-field model, case 7.

16000

Time

100 80
oil rate, ICV

Oil rate, STB/D Oil rate, STB/D

12000

60 40 20 0 2030

8000

oil rate, w/o ICV water cut, ICV

4000

water cut, w/o ICV

0 2005

2010

2015
Time Time

2020

2025

Fig. 23. Second smart multilateral well performance comparison, full-field model, case 7.

Water cut, % Water cut, %

Water cut, %

Water cut, %% cut,

80

Case 7 is to model 10 multilateral wells, each with two or three laterals with length about 1 km in a dual permeability system with medium variation in matrix permeability, Fig. 20. The reservoir net pay is about 250 ft. The total number of cells is about 1 million. There are about 800 vertical wells in the model. Power water injection is applied at the interface of aquifer and oil zone. There are many extremely highpermeability fracture conduits to cause early water breakthrough. Using 60 CPUs of a Linux AMD Opertron 2.6 GHz cluster, typical 26 year prediction runs took about 1.7 hours. The inclusion of ICD or ICV in the simulation model does not increase the CPU time much. In fact, some of the ICD simulation runs show a reduction in CPU timing relative to the base case since the reservoir modeling problem with less water fingering becomes easier to solve. The smart well lateral ICV controls, Fig. 21, to reduce water production are applied to 10 multilateral wells only. SmartWell control rules are: One downhole choke at each lateral near the junction. Activate choke control logics if well water cut > 20%. Search for lateral with water cut > 40%, then apply choking action to cut the lateral rate by about half. Maximum choking actions = 2. Afterward, no further choking action will occur even if lateral water cut > 40%. Shut-in lateral if lateral water cut > 95%. We have purposely set the well water cut limit, 20% lower than the lateral water cut limit, 40%. If both limits are set to be the same value, 40%, then the results are not encouraging. If we wait for the well water cut to reach 40% before acting, then it will be too late. Some lateral water cut can reach 80% by then. In Figs. 22-28, the dashed lines represent the smart well ICV performance and the solid lines are for the well performance without ICV. Figures 22 and 23 show two examples of single well performance indicating a significant water production reduction due to smart well ICV applications. In Fig. 22, the first smart well action occurs around 20% water cut and one of the laterals gets choked back. Another smart well action occurs around 40% water cut and it results in a sharp drop in water cut and an increase in oil production. Figure 24 shows the entire group performance for the 10 multilateral wells. The benefits of smart well application in reducing water production is still evident at
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Oil rate, STB/D Oil rate, STB/D rate, STB/D

43

150000

oil rate, ICV oil rate, w/o ICV water cut, ICV water cut, w/o ICV

100

12500
Water cut, %cut, % WaterWater% cut,

100

Oil rate, STB/D STB/D Oil rate, rate, Oil STB/D

80

Oil rate, STB/D Oil rate, STB/D Oil rate, STB/D

10000
oil rate, ICV oil rate, w/o ICV water cut, ICV

80

100000 60

7500

60

40 50000 20

5000

water cut, w/o ICV

40

2500

20

0 2005

Time

2010

2015

2020

2025

0 2030

0 2005

2010

2015

2020

2025

0 2030

Time Time
Fig. 24. Group performance comparison of 10 smart multilateral wells, full-field model, case 7.

Time T me T iim e
Fig. 26. Horizontal smart well performance, full-field model, case 7.

300000 250000

100

12500

100

Oil rate, STB/D Oil rate, STB/D Oil rate, STB/D

80

10000
oil rate, ICV oil rate, w/o ICV water cut, ICV

80

Oil rate, STB/D STB/D Oil rate, STB/D Oil rate,

200000 60 150000 40 100000 50000 0 2005 oil rate, ICV oil rate, w/o ICV water cut, ICV water cut, w/o ICV 2010 2015 Time Time 2020 2025 0 2030 20

Water Water cut, % cut, % Water cut, %

7500

60

5000

water cut, w/o ICV

40

2500

20

0 2005

2010

2015

2020

2025

0 2030

T m T iim e Timee
Fig. 27. Second horizontal smart well performance, full-field model, case 7.

Fig. 25. Entire GOSP performance comparison, full-field model, case 7. Time

193 MMSTB, although oil production increase is small, 12 MMSTB. To reduce the water cut, we shut-in some laterals, thereby also reducing total fluid production including oil. Unfortunately, the positive response from single and group performance gets neutralized in the overall gas oil separation plant (GOSP) performance, Fig. 25. The GOSP water production reduction is only about 60 MMSTB. The GOSP has about 60 conventional vertical wells in addition to the 10 multilateral smart wells. Although we have seen very impressive improvement from single well analysis, the diverted invading water from smart multilateral wells can flow towards other neighboring vertical wells without smart well equipment. The important lesson we learn is that the application of smart well requires a systematic full-field operation. It is not simple and in fact, it requires a lot of research in the future. In case 8 we investigate the smart horizontal well performance by replacing the above mentioned multilateral wells by 11 horizontal wells with length of 1 km each. Instead of using ICV at the lateral junction, in case 8 we use four ICVs along the horizontal wellbore.
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ICV operation rules are: Set four ICV sections along the horizontal wellbore with each 250 m long section. Activate ICV control if well water cut > 20%. Search for each ICV section with water cut > 40%, then apply choking action to cut the section rate by about half. Maximum choking actions = 2. Afterward, no further choking action will occur even if the section water cut > 40%. Shut-in a section if section water cut > 95%. The ICV application generates much less improvement than in the previously discussed multilateral well case. Figures 26 and 27 show small changes in the single well performance. As a group of 11 horizontal smart wells, the ICV application benefit is negligible, Fig. 28. Poor smart iwell performance is due to the T me T im e fact that all sections are mostly in the same geologic layer. If a section with a higher water cut is choked back, the invading water is simply moving to the next section. A better smart horizontal well performance can be expected if the well can penetrate different geologic layers by increasing the slant angle.
Oil rate, STB/D Oil rate, STB/D Water cut, % Water cut, %

Water cut, % Water cut, % cut, %

Water cut, % Water cut, % % Water

150000 125000

oil rate, ICV oil rate, w/o ICV water cut, ICV water cut, w/o ICV

100

Oil rate, STB/D Oil rate, STB/D

80

100000 60 75000 40 50000 25000 0 2005 20

2010

2015

2020

2025

0 2030

Timee Tim
Fig. 28. Group performance comparison of 10 horizontal smart wells, full-field model, case 7.

High oil influx high perm zone low perm zone

Low water influx Water oil contact

Fig. 29. Scenario of poor equalizer performance.

guarantee better oil recovery. The success of an equalizer application may depend on inherent geologic characteristics, with greater chances for a positive impact if there is a sharp permeability contrast along the well completion path. From sector model results, incremental oil production from equalizer use can be economically attractive even without a water breakthrough time delay. A minor improvement in water cut over a long period adds up to millions of barrels of additional oil for one well. In gas coning situations, an equalizer can significantly reduce GOR values. Salamy el al.1, have reported a 50% reduction in GOR when an equalizer was deployed for a horizontal well in Shaybah field. This field observation echoes the gas coning results in this article. An important element in the optimization loop is the optimal target production. If a well is made to produce too fast, the coning or fingering will occur no matter what the advanced well equipment will be used. In full-field smart well application, we have observed that multilateral wells equipped with downhole choke produce much less water. On a global scale, however, the GOSP water production improvement becomes less impressive, as diverted water gets produced through neighboring conventional vertical wells. Therefore, the deployment of smart well technology requires a systematic approach. Modern optimization methods such as Adjoint Method9, Ensemble Kalman Filter Optimization10, and Genetic Algorithm should be used to select advanced intelligent control devices for existing wells and future infill wells in optimal locations. The objective function is to minimize the interface area between oil and invading water, i.e., maximum sweep efficiency and no bypassed oil.

The application of equalizer production systems in full-field studies does not generate much improvement as in the smart well application discussed above. Some wells show improvement while others perform worse than without the equalizers. If the invading water comes through a lowpermeability zone and dry oil production comes from a high-permeability zone, then the equalizer application will increase production from the low-permeability zone and thus cause worse well performance, Fig. 29. We have also tried to run ICD and ICV simultaneously. One colleague has suggested that the ICV operation should be operated from day one to generate a more uniform production profile prior to water arrival. The ICV operation is less effective once water fingering arrives near a well. We use the equalizer installation to mimic the early on ICV operation. Simulation results of using both ICV and ICD show no significant improvement relative to the ICV only case. We think a field-wide balanced well production rate allocation is probably the single most important factor to prevent early water breakthrough.

Water cut, % Water cut, %

CONCLUSIONS
1. We have derived a new well equation to incorporate pressure drop across equalizers with pressure drop due to reservoir drawdown. The new well equation can be solved simultaneously with reservoir mass balance equations to yield a stable solution in a numerical-efficient manner. 2. The new well equation can be derived into another form to express the pressure drop as a rate-dependent skin. This development can help in interpreting pressure transient data for wells equipped with an equalizer. 3. Single well performance for an equalizer application has mixed results. In certain environments, equalizer use can reduce water cut or GOR significantly, and improve water flooding efficiency; in other cases it can cause deterioration in well performance. Proper engineering design and indepth understanding about the reservoir characteristics and production history are key to a successful deployment of equalizer production systems. 4. Field-wide studies of smart well and equalizer application have been conducted with disappointing results. We can conclude that the application will not significantly improve
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SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION

From single well case 1 and full-field model results, we have seen that a more uniform production profile does not

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performance unless careful optimization work can be planned beforehand, and this will require advanced mathematical techniques such as the Adjoint Method.

REFERENCES
1. Salamy, S.P., et al.: Deployed Smart Technologies Enablers for Improving Well Performance in Tight Reservoirs - Case: Shaybah Field, Saudi Arabia, SPE paper 99281, SPE Intelligent Energy Conference and Exhibition, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, April 2006. 2. Lorentz, M., et al.: Uniform Inflow Completion System Extends Economic Field Life: A Field Case Study and Technology Overview, SPE paper 101895, SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, San Antonio, Texas, 2006. 3. Williamson, J.R., et al.: An Infinitely Variable Choke for Multi-Zone Intelligent Well Completions, SPE paper 64280, SPE Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition, Brisbane, Australia, October 2000. 4. Peaceman, D.W.: Interpretation of Wellblock Pressure in Numerical Reservoir Simulation, SPEJ, June 1978, p. 183; Trans., AIME 265. 5. Dogru, A.H., et al.: A Parallel Reservoir Simulator for Large-Scale Reservoir Simulation, SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering, February 2002. 6. Su, H. and Lee, S.H.: Modeling Transient Wellbore Behavior in Horizontal Wells, SPE paper 29961, SPE International Symposium, Beijing, China, 1995. 7. Su, H. and Fong, W.S.: Modeling Multilateral Wells, SPE paper 50401, Canadian Journal of Petroleum Technology, March 2000. 8. van Everdingen, A.F.: The Skin Effect and its Influence on the Productive Capacity of a Well, Trans., AIME 198, 1953. 9. Handels, M., et al.: Adjoint-Based Well-Placement Optimization under Production Constraints, SPE paper 105797, SPE Reservoir Simulation Symposium, Houston, Texas, February 2007. 10. Lorentzen, R.J.: A New Approach for Dynamic Optimization of Waterflooding Problems, SPE paper 99690, SPE Intelligent Energy Conference and Exhibition, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, April 2006.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors thank Saudi Aramco management for permission to publish this article. We also thank Saudi Aramco colleagues, Byung Lee, Jerry White and Tony Pham for their useful discussions. Henry Hoy contributed in the complex well coding work. Sector model examples were built with assistance from Omar Hinai and Ahmed Sultan. Vincent Divry participated in the full-field model building and analyses. Special thanks to Anne Raffn of RESLINK for providing model validation input deck and other technical consultation.

NOMENCLATURE
A C F g H h K Kr M P PI q r S SM V Cross-section area A constant Fractional flow factor Gravity constant Layer thickness Depth difference between well block and well reference point Permeability Relative permeability Mobility ratio Pressure Well productivity index Flow rate Radius Saturation or skin factor Mechanical skin Velocity Viscosity Density Potential Porosity

Subscripts

c cons E f j g l M m o r w

Constriction Constriction Equalizer Fracture medium Fluid phase Gas phase Layer Matrix medium Mixture Oil phase or reference state Relative permeability or reservoir cell Well or water phase

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APPENDIX A: DERIVATION FOR A DUAL PERMEABILITY SYSTEM

The mixture density and the oil phase fraction are calculated for each well block, and they can be computed for a single porosity system as: A-1

BIOGRAPHIES
Dr. Ho-Jeen Su joined Saudi Aramco in 2002. He works as a Petroleum Engineering Consultant in the Computational Modeling Technology team of the Exploration and Petroleum Engineering Center - Advanced Research Center (EXPEC ARC). He has more than 26 years experience in developing reservoir simulators, conducting reservoir simulation studies, analyzing pressure transient data, and leading field-wide development. Ho-Jeens current research activities include total field optimization and automatic history matching using the Ensemble Kalman Filter. In 1981, he received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, CA. Dr. Ali H. Dogru is a Chief Technologist, Computational Modeling Technology, Exploration and Petroleum Engineering Center - Advanced Research Center (EXPEC ARC). He is in charge of supervising scientists and engineers developing Saudi Aramcos parallel reservoir simulator POWERS. Formerly, Ali was General Supervisor of the Technology Development Division, involved in reservoir simulator development and production technology field testing, deployment and in-house development. Ali joined Saudi Aramco in 1988 as a loanee from Mobil Oil Company in Dallas, TX. His industrial experience includes Mobil Oil and Core Labs/Engineering Numerics Company in Dallas, TX. Ali has a Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering/Applied Mathematics from the University of Texas, TX. His academic experience includes various positions at the University of Texas Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mathematics, California Institute of Technology in Chemical Engineering, Norwegian Institute of Technology and the Technical University of Istanbul.

A-2

A-3

For a dual permeability system, oil rate in Eqn. 6 should be the combined oil rate. For the matrix media, Eqn. 6 will become

A-4

where FM is the oil fraction flow of matrix medium and can be approximated by

A-5 Rigorously speaking, Eqn. A-5 is correct if fracture pressure and matrix pressure are assumed to be very close to each other at sandface. This assumption is valid as we normally have a large equalizer pressure drop presence. And Eqns. 7 and 8 can be rewritten as

A-6

A-7

Again, we can develop similar equations for gas and water phases, and for the fracture medium.

SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

SUMMER 2008

47