Abstract
The well planning process in ADCO (Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations) is usually driven by subsurface disciplines as part of a full field development plan and consists of a limited number of development iterations related to surface (natural or man-made obstacle) or subsurface (anti-collision, dog leg severity) constraints. The apparent simplicity of this development description is hiding a much more complicated reality for many of the Abu Dhabi giant oilfields that have been producing for several decades. ADCO manages one such asset and is now developing previously untapped reservoirs within an existing mature field and is facing issues such as positioning new facilities; the necessary replacement and upgrade of old surface facilities; surface and subsurface congestion; continuous appraisal activities of additional hydrocarbon-bearing reservoirs; increased HSE compliance and competing land utilization requirements from third parties. Added to this is the diversity and complexity of the professional Information Technology software currently used by the surface and subsurface disciplines, most of which are legacy systems that are not integrated. As such, the business problem of planning and drilling several hundreds of new horizontal wells becomes more critical over time.
Several initiatives have been launched at Company level in order to address these issues such as streamlining the well placement process by using a new workflow Well Approval Process; a common corporate Geographic Information System (GIS) interface, as well as the planned integration with a Drilling Real Time Operations and Control centre (RTOC) for drilling follow-up activities.
While the current process always led to well placement in line with state-of-the-art practices, the on-going process improvements are expected to decrease the current stress level on surface and subsurface asset teams and ensure a manageable load level as drilling activity is scheduled to increase three-fold in the coming two years. This paper discusses the history of the field, its geological setting, the development of surface and subsurface assets and the challenges now being faced and how the challenges are being over come to ensure continue its continued development.
