A Paradigm Change In Water Flood Strategy Using Horizontal Injectors In The Sabriyah Field, North Kuwait

摘要

As one of KOC’s main Oil Production field’s North Kuwait is developing projects and support activities to increase Oil production to one million bbl. /day by 2017-2018. A critical and vital part art of this Oil Production strategy are the major water injection projects. Based on last 10 years of water flood experiences, the water flooding strategy was modified to add horizontal injectors to help accelerate pressure maintenance to the critical pressure sink areas, in particular, and pressure support to the giant NK Sabiriyah Mauddud reservoir, in overall. An example of this being Well SA-M HST1, a existing vertical injector, was chosen to be horizontally side tracked, the primary purpose being to improve and enhance the reservoir pressure in the Northern part of the field which historically in the past has exihibited decline in pressure due to a increased offtake. Preliminary results are positive and show a reduction in the reservoir pressure decline rate, Stabilization in ESP intake pressures at offtake wells & Reduction in the frequency of ESP trips. To understand and analyse completely the response behavior, a comprehensive monitoring of SA - M HST1 injector has been initiated, covering several tarcking items such as Well head pressure readings, Flow line pressure readings, Gathering center water cuts tests, Water cut samples, Static bottom hole pressure for the closed wells in the pattern, Production logging for the injector and producers, Flowing bottom hole pressures and time lapsed portable tests. Monitoring has been planned for a period of six months to understand clearly the vertical pressure connectivity between the productive layers within the reservoir, and also more importantly the impact on the production behavior of the surrounding wells. The paper then closes and shares with the reader the lesson learnt and the next steps.