PLACEMENT OF INFLOW CONTROL VALVES FOR HORIZONTAL OIL WELL IN HETEROGENEOUS RESERVOIRS

Abstract

Horizontal well yields several advantages compared to vertical well. Increasing exposure area is probably one of the first reasons to drill this type of well. However, when horizontal well is implemented in highly heterogeneous reservoir; water encroachment from underneath aquifer will permeate through high permeability zone, causing locally high water production. Installation of Inflow Control Valve (ICV) in particular sections can mitigate this early water production. Configuring horizontal well with proper operating parameters could yield benefits on both increment of oil recovery and reduction of produced water. In this study, the heel side of horizontal section should be placed at low permeability region to compensate water encroachment due to friction loss inside production string. After placing horizontal well location on top layer of reservoir to increase as much as possible the drainage volume and fixing appropriate total liquid production rate, the well is configured to identify segment partitioning method, number of ICV, and pre-set water cut, respectively. From simulation results, partitioning well segment by using well contact transmissibility with the highest number of ICV segments yields benefit on both oil and water productions. Moreover, pre-set watercut of each valve should be configured to terminate the operation at 90 to 95 percent of the maximum watercut value. By using the best ICV configuration, increment of 11% total oil produced can be obtained. At the same time, this configuration can reduce water production by 16%. In case of reservoir containing small value of heterogeneity, benefits from ICV installation is not as well-pronounced as reservoir with high heterogeneity as water encroachment problem is not severe in case of low heterogeneous reservoir.