Multilateral Horizontal Well Improves Oil Recovery in a Mature Field in Libya

摘要

The full-length paper examines the performance of a multilateral completion in a mature thin carbonate reservoir.The initial field development with two vertical wells resulted in a poor recovery of only 9% of the original oil in place.A reservoir-simulation study in 2003 indicated that drilling vertical wells in a very thin reservoir of poor quality was not cost-effective and recommended drilling horizontal wells.The stabilized oil-production rate of the multilateral horizontal well was approximately three times higher than that of the vertical well.