The industry is undergoing a transformational change, driven by increases in exploration and development costs in the last decade, combined with falling oil prices in recent months. As a result, there is an increased interest in squeezing more from mature assets. The general message is that a 1% increase in recovery factor could result in two additional years of global oil and gas supply; however, industry experts know how difficult it is to increase recovery from mature fields. This paper presents a novel screening method that enables a large number of scenarios to be considered and facilitates convergence on potential solutions. By 2018, 70% of global oil production (more than 80 million B/D) is projected to come from mature fields (Fig. 1). Some major exploration and production (E&P) operators already have more than 70% of their portfolios in production decline. This global trend, combined with the pressure to reduce the cost per BOE resulting from declining oil prices, has pushed E&P operators to place a renewed emphasis on mature fields. This paper presents an integrated approach to revitalizing mature fields and addresses this new reality by focusing on three key areas: immediate impact solutions, reservoir optimization, and new pay. The first step in this process is a screening and ranking method for mature field revitalization choices, which enables feasible options to be identified at an early stage, thus avoiding wasted time and money pursuing unfeasible and/or uneconomic options. A common challenge for the operators of mature assets is filtering the vast array of issues and potential solutions. This unique screening method leverages a global reservoir analog screening database combined with technical and economic modeling techniques to help ensure that the optimum revitalization strategy for the reservoir is achieved. In many cases, the proposed solutions may be technically interesting, but very expensive or operationally not feasible. This paper explains how the proposed revitalization plans must be combined with a fully integrated end-to-end solution, from planning, design, and simulation to field implementation. Case studies are shared to demonstrate how this integrated approach, linking concept to implementation, can avoid expensive iterations and help to enable mature field production uplift.
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