Tapis - New Opportunities from a Maturing Field

摘要

This paper focuses on how the integration of technologies such as sequence stratigraphy, log analysis, 3D seismic, reservoir simulation and drillingrnhave helped in overcoming the many challenges, andrnincreased Tapis field's reserves by about 30 percent.rnThe work program for realizing these reserves includesrnrig workovers, infill/step-out drilling from existingrnplatforms, and installation of a new satellite platform. Torndate, the rig workovers and most of the infill drilling havernbeen completed, and results have been mixed butrnoverall, encouraging. The new satellite platform wasrninstalled in third quarter of 1998 and development drillingrnoff this platform is now underway. The experience atrnTapis demonstrates the value of looking for newrnopportunities in mature fields.rnThe Tapis field is located approximately 210 km (130rnmiles) off the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia in thernSouth China Sea at water depth of about 64 m (200rnfeet). The field was discovered in 1969 by the Tapis -1rnexploration well and further delineated with threernappraisal wells before development drilling commencedrnin 1977. Five platforms were installed and a total of 90rndevelopment wells were drilled as at year-end 1998.rnWaterflood was implemented to maximize ultimaternrecovery from the field. Over 47.7 million st.kL (300rnmillion STB) of oil has been produced to date with arnpeak oil rate of about 12.7 thousand st.kL (80 thousandrnSTB) per day achieved after the initial two years ofrnproduction buildup. From about the seventh year, thernfield's production went on a steady decline and reachedrna rate of about 3.3 thousand st.kL (21 thousand STB)rnper day after about 15 years of production. In 1993, arnmulti-disciplinary team consisting of geophysicists,rngeologists, petrophysicists and reservoir engineers wasrnassembled to identify both near- and longer-termrnopportunities in the field to mitigate the productionrndecline.