Application of an ICD on Reducing Water Production

1Reducing the water production by using an Inflow Control Device (ICD) in horizontal well

Reducing the water production by using an Inflow Control Device (ICD) in

horizontal well

Mr. Wasin Saengnumpong ID 537 16080 21

Production Project Assignment, Production Engineering 2106564

Abstract

Inflow control devices (ICD) are the sand face completion equipment with the objective of

creating uniform flow profile across horizontal wells, delaying early water breakthrough, and

preventing water coning and/or gas cusping.

This report demonstrated the water coning/breakthrough problem for the horizontal wells.

And the application of ICD to solve the early water production problem. The case studies of

completion simulation which were extracted from Liang-Bio Ouyang (2009) were also

discussed in this report.

Finally, the simulation results show that using the optimized ICD have successfully limit the

effect of heel to toe and can delaying water coning/breakthrough.

Introduction to the ICD

Figure 1. Illustrates an orifice type ICD, oil flowing from the reservoir will enter at

the entry point and pass the restriction flow area (for this case is an orifice). Therefore the

pressure drop is induced before the oil enter the tubing.

Figure 1. An orifice type ICD


Description of specific production problem

For the horizontal well along the heel to toe section have a pressure gradient due to

the frictional pressure loss. Then when petroleum flow into the well with the difference well

flowing pressure, cause the non-balance inflow from the reservoir which is resulting in water

coning/breakthrough problem as illustrated in Figure 2.

For the Heterogeneous reservoirs such as layering systems the water breakthrough

problem also occur as in the Figure 3.

Figure 2. The water coning/breakthrough in homogenous reservoir

Figure 3. The water coning/breakthrough in heterogeneous reservoir

With ICDWithout ICD

Without ICD With ICD


Application of an ICD on Reducing Water Production

The main function of an ICD is providing an additional pressure drop at particular

zone, and then an ICD can be applied to reduce the water production by the following

method.

1. Delaying the water breakthrough through the water coning or the high permeability path,

by decreasing the pressure drawdown at that zone, with resulting in the lower production rate

from this zone.

As shown on the Figure x, the ICD was optimized set to math each layer pressure

drawdown and permeability. The pressure drop at ICD, DPICD = Pnw - Pwf and the pressure

drawdown, DPDD = Pr - Pnw

The disadvantage of this solution is total well production rate is lower by the ICD and

to carry out this solution the exact reservoir properties must be determined before design the

optimized ICD, otherwise the result would be miss from the expected one.

Figure x. Balancing of Inflow by using ICD at each layer (After Liang-Biao Ouyang (2009))


2. Blocking the high water saturation zone

As shown in the Figure x, the same principle as previous section is introduced again.

The flow from high water saturation is blocked by ICD, but the petroleum production also

decreasing.

About this application, Liang- Biao Ouyang (2009) had suggested that the water may

flow parallel to the wellbore and flow into the others zones as in the Figure x.

Figure x. Using ICD for Inflow Balancing in high water production zone

(After Liang-Biao Ouyang (2009))

From my point of view, Even though these applications reduce the total production

rate but the benefit is the less capacity of water treatment at the surface requirement. This

may help the cost of water handling at the surface.

By the way, the case studies of these two solutions are presented in the next section,

the appropriate of the solutions would also further discuss.


Case Studies

The case studies presented here are extracted from Liang-Biao Ouyang (2009), first

case is an example of using ICD to prevent early water breakthroughs. Second case is an

example of using ICD to blocking the water production from high water saturation zone.

For both cases the 4000 ft along the wellbore section of horizontal well was

investigated.

The well completion simulation software tool used for solving both case is NEToolTM

First Case

The simulate reservoir and fluid properties distribution along the 4000 ft wellbore

section are shown in Figure 5. the fluid drainage section was divided into 4 sections, as in

table 1.

Table 1. Each section details

Section Measured Depth (ft) Permeability (mD) Sw So

1. 5000 – 5500 200 0.1 0.9

2. 5500 – 7000 900 0.1 0.9

3. 7000 – 8000 300 0.1 0.9

4. 8000 - 9000 200 0.1 0.9

The created three scenarios was set as

A. Slotted liner completion: slotted liner is used along the entire wellbore section.

B. Uniform ICD completion: ICD with same setting is installed along the entire wellbore

section.

C. Optimized ICD completion: ICD with optimized setting with reservoir parameter is

installed along the entire wellbore section.


Figure 5. Reservoir properties and their distribution along the wellbore section


Figure 6. Pressure Drawdown along the wellbore section



Table 2. Comparison of Oil, Gas and total production with Different Completion Scenarios

Scenarios Qo (STB/d) Qg (MMscf/d) Qtotal (rb/d)

A. Slotted liner completion 3357.0 2.49 3524.8

B. Uniform ICD completion 3289.0 2.44 3453.5

C. Optimized ICD completion 1619.0 1.20 1670.0

Figure 6. shows the

pressure drawdown for each

scenario. It clearly sees that

optimized ICD completion

(scenario C) has more

efficient in reducing the

pressure drawdown for high

permeability section.

Figure 7, 8 also show

the achievement of optimized

ICD in control the uniform

inflow along the entire

wellbore section.Figure 7. Oil Production Profile along the Wellbore Section


Figure 8. Sandface Pressure (blue curve) and Tubing Pressure (pink curve) along the Wellbore Section (After Liang-Biao Ouyang (2009))

The comparison of total

production rate are shown in Table

2. ,the scenario C with optimized ICD

yield the lowest production rate

compare to the others scenarios. In

the other hand, even the scenario A

(slot liner) yield the highest

production rate but it came with the

highest chance of water conning

/breakthrough in the future.


Second Case

The same type of data like in the first case are given in the Figure 9, but for this case

all sections have the same permeability and varying the oil and water saturations instead.

Table 3. Comparison of Oil, Gas and Water production with Different Completion Scenarios

As shown in Figure 9, the

section 2 (5500-7000 MD) has the

highest Sw and was expected to

produce a significant amount of

water from this zone.

The completion scenarios

with each results production rate

and percent of water cut are shown

in Table 3.

Figure 9. Reservoir properties and their distribution along the wellbore section (After Liang-Biao Ouyang (2009))


As expected result, the Slotted Liner completion produce highest rate with highest

water cut. For ICD completions, the important thing is the significant different of water cut

between 4 scenarios, it can infer that despite of the ICD was set but without optimized it with

reservoir data, layer location, layer properties (permeability, phase saturation, etc.) and the

predicted amount of inflow, it cannot cut much of water production compare to the optimized

case.

Discussions and Future work

From the two case studies, the use of optimized ICD for preventing water

coning/breakthrough is quite effective solution. But for the water blocking case, if the water

production from that zone is very high, Neglect this zone may be a good option (blank pipe

case). It can see that for the second case study, we have to consider the economical aspect

and its efficiency of the solution. In short, I consider the ICD application for blocking water

production is not quite effective because ICD itself is not design for trim out the water and if

the interesting section has contribute a significant of oil production also then blocking this

kind of section may be not feasible except the future work on an intelligent ICD with phase

filtering capability for blocking the undesired phase. This type of ICD is on developing right

now but not yet successfully.

However, an ICD may be optimal initially, but not when the reservoir pressure is

depleted. Moreover, for the volatile oil the gas can liberate out at the ICD due to the pressure

drop below bubble point, causing the gas blocking the fluid flow along the horizontal well

bore section.


Conclusion

1. The ICD was proved to be effective in preventing water coning/breakthrough in horizontal

well with Heel to Toe effect for both homogenous and heterogeneous reservoirs.

2. From the case studies, the result shows that the ICD completion will not successful if we

do not know the accurate reservoir data to optimized the ICD.

3. In my view, ICD can be apply to the vertical well to prevent water coning/breakthrough

from the heterogeneous reservoirs such as layering systems, fractured system, etc.

4. For the flooding process like steam flood or water flood, ICD completion will help

stabilized the frontal displacement and increase the sweep efficiency then the water

breakthrough will be delayed.

References

1. F. T. Al-Khelaiwi and D. R. Davies: “Inflow Control Devices: Application and Value

Quantification of a Developing Technology,” paper SPE 108700, presented at the 2007

International Oil Conference and Exhibition in Mexico, 27-30 June 2007, Veracruz, Mexico

2. Bernt S. Aadnoy and Geir Hareland: “Analysis of Inflow Control Devices,” paper SPE

122824, present at the 2009 SPE Offoreshore Europe Oil &Gas Conference & Exhibition in

UK, 8-11 September 2009

3. Liang-Bio Ouyang: “Practical Consideration of an Inflow Control Device Application for

Reducing Water Production,” paper SPE 124154, present at the 2009 SPE Annual Technical

Conference and Exhibition held in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, 4–7 October 2009

4. http://www.halliburton.com/public/cps/contents/Presentations/EquiFlow_ICD.pdf


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Application of an ICD on Reducing Water Production