SPE 133452 Well Productivity Index Degradation Applied Modeling Workflow

Saputelli L., Perez J., Hess, and Chacon A., Lopez C., Patino J., Halliburton and Eggenschwiler M., Statoil USA

Copyright 2010, Society of Petroleum Engineers This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Florence, Italy, 1922 September 2010. This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.

Abstract Productivity index (PI) reduction is a recognized phenomenon in oil and gas production to the extent that production becomes uneconomic. Productivity index (PI) decrease may be caused by several factors arising from reservoir, completion, and operational issues. The reservoir-related factors include compaction, fines migration, pressure support and multi-phase fluid flow. The completion-related issues arise from frac-pack geometry and stress-sensitivity of proppant conductivity. Finally, operational issues such as pressure drawdown at the sandface and induced flux (the movement of fluids across the completion) may also play a large role in PI degradation. Understanding the interactions of different parameters controlling the PI behavior and the resultant well performance is paramount for maximizing the ultimate recovery and net-present value or NPV. PI modeling may offer several challenges because it involves non-unique solutions for reservoirs and near-wellbore and well-completion status, in addition to manual data entry subject to human errors, uncertainties in reservoir parameters, and poor quality field data. This study presents a workflow for modeling well PI degradation for an over-pressured gas/condensate reservoir in deep offshore Gulf of Mexico. An automated procedure was tailored and applied to match production history by adjusting both the reservoir and well completion parameters. Among the reservoir parameters considered were horizontal stresses, rock compressibility, absolute permeability, relative-permeability endpoints and curvature, porosity, stress-sensitive permeability and porosity. The well completion parameters included fracture length, height, width, conductivity, and stress. A Tabu Scatter Search optimizer engine (April et al., 2003) selected the optimal values of a set of input parameters to minimize the objective function, i.e. the error between the measured and calculated PI values. Both reservoir and well completion parameters contributing to PI degradation were identified, and compared to those obtained by alternate methods. The relative and combined contributions of stress-sensitive reservoir compressibility, permeability, porosity, and fracture conductivity all helped understand well performance and guide decisions towards optimum well operating envelope.

Introduction PI degradation is a significant issue in a number of reservoirs around the world and may impair economics in dramatic ways. When producing oil or gas from a weak reservoir, rock compaction caused by pressure depletion may occur, often with adverse consequences. For this type of reservoir such as unconsolidated sands, rock compaction often causes permeability reduction and rock failure that may significantly influence the well productivity to the extent production becomes uneconomic. PI degradation evidence in deep offshore Gulf of Mexico reservoirs Effective overburden load as a result of production in stress-sensitive reservoirs often results in a loss in productivity for a wide range of operating conditions and reservoir properties (Raghavan and Chin, 2002). Skin factor induced by stress sensitivity increases with increasing permeability reduction resulting in high pressure drawdowns. PI reduction was evidenced by pressure transient analysis in the Ewing Bank Block 873 Lobster field, located 130 miles southwest of New Orleans in 775 ft of water, which produces from Gulf of Mexico deepwater turbidities sands (Petro et al., 1997). Most of the production is from the Pliocene age Bulminella sand. The field was discovered in 1991 and a conventional 30-slot platform was installed in the summer of 1994. Oil production from 10 wells peaked initially at the platform capacity 48,000 STB/D. Core analysis indicated that significant permeability reduction could be expected due to compaction from reservoir