The Successful Development and Installation of a New Single-Trip Multizone Completion System Developed for the Deepwater Gulf of Mexico Lower Tertiary Formation

摘要

Development of the Wilcox stacked oil sands in the Lower Tertiary fields in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM)requires zonal stimulation; however, when the decision was made to produce this formation, the stackedsand-control systems currently available would have been cost prohibitive. Thus, a special team wascommissioned to develop a single-trip multizone completion system to address the challenges ofproducing this ultradeepwater GOM field.This paper chronicles the development, qualification, and installation of a new one-trip high-ratefracture system that meets the needs of cased-hole installations in the Lower Tertiary formations with welldepths reaching 28,000 ft TVD, as well as in cased-hole shallow-depth wells in the Asia Pacific area.A dedicated development team began tool-system development in January 2007. The first systemsintegration test (SIT) was conducted in December 2007 after only 11 months. The successful SIT led tothe assignment of three land wells by a major international oil company to prove out the multizone system.After two successful installations, the third installation was eliminated, because the multizone system wasclassified as operationally ready.Drilling issues lead to the plugging and abandonment of the planned inaugural ultradeepwaterinstallation. The operational moratorium in the GOM in 2010 also changed the original target wells. Thefirst commercial cased-hole installation was run in the Asia Pacific area in a shallow-depth wellenvironment using water-pack treatments. Subsequently, multiple ultradeepwater installations have beenperformed to date.Lessons learned from the SIT process and from the initial installations that included the ultradeepwaterLower Tertiary fields are presented.