Nowadays, for the Oil companies, reducing time to market is extremely important, accelerating the elapsed time between the appraisal and development phase. A phased approach represents the best way to optimize the field resources, developing "known areas" while appraising uncertain zones.
Beta field is an offshore heterogeneous, tight oil reservoir, characterized by turbiditic currents triggered by floods and tectonic activity. The reservoir quality is assumed to deteriorate towards the South and towards the West due to the Northern or Northeastern sediment source. Three explorative wells were drilled and hydraulically fractured, providing different dynamic responses and highlighting the needs of fracking the wells.
The low permeability hence the limited investigated area, the well outcomes (logs, well tests, frac job responses), lobes extension, make complex to firm up a full field development strategy minimizing risks. Several sensitivities were performed, on the number of wells and platforms, number of hydraulic fractures, well design, artificial lift options, water and gas injection. According to sensitivities results the best developed scenario envisages high number of multiple frac wells to increase the recovery factor. Due to the high uncertainties the development has been planned through a phased approach producing the "known areas" around the drilled wells while appraising the uncertain areas acquiring the necessary data to upgrade the project.
Phasing field development will also allow to: minimize the geologic/production risk associated with a large new discovery; effectively manage capital cost, drilling and other resources; optimize production facilities based on a continually improving reservoir characterization; accelerate the first oil and initial project revenue and maximize the field resource value.
The purpose of this paper is to describe how through discipline integration and lessons learnt, the development from the known zone to the undiscovered areas has been approached optimizing field resources.
