Much attention has been given to the drilling, completion and initial production stages of horizontal wells. The advantages of using horizontal well technology is well documented and many successful field cases - in terms ofwell productivity - have been reported. Much less attention has been given tosome of the productivity problems which may arise when such wells start to produce water. In particular, there are a range of specific production chemistry issues have not been widely discussed in the industry literature. Themain reason for this is that, to date, there is very little operational experience of such problems.
In this paper, we consider the problem of carrying out scale inhibitor squeeze treatments in horizontal wells. If carbonate or sulphate scaleformation was in a water producing horizontal well, anticipate that thetreatment strategy will be rather direct from that which would commonly beapplied in a vertical well. Tile authors are not aware of vertical well field experience which can be called upon for this treatment. We have therefore takena conceptual design approach which tries to anticipate the problem and to planahead for its solution. A simulation and modelling study is presented in whichvarious scale inhibitor treatment strategies are examined with a view todetermining the main factors which affect this process in a horizontal well. We tackle a number of important questions which will face the industry asscaling problems are encountered in horizontal wells.
We present this work as a preliminary study which tries to highlight some ofthe issues, problems and questions which will arise in the future when morehorizontal wells start to operate at higher watercuts. The objective is toraise these issues at this stage in order to stimulate the discussion withinthe industry about how scaling problems in horizontal wells will be solved, byusing the squeeze technology. We do not solve all of the problems which weraise but a number of points emerge from our study which we present as apreliminary assessment of this problem.
