Abstract
According to industry wide surveys, the number of wells drilled as injectors relative to producers are on the rise. The cause being driven by the knowledge gained from industry's experience and need to maintain pressure support during the entire production life cycle of a well improving ultimate oil recovery.
One of the biggest challenges with water injectors is how to manage an efficient sweep of the oil. An early breakthrough event when attempting to manage pressure maintenance is undesirable because it leads to unwanted water breakthrough in the producing well and leaves behind valuable oil reserves. This ultimately increases the cost of production and reduces net revenues on a per well basis.
This paper introduces an innovative, cost-effective solution resulting in an efficient sweep of the producing zones and improved oil recovery. Sustaining control of where the water is distributed in vertical cased hole wells versus long open hole lateral sections requires some type of down hole mechanical mechanism directing the injected waters to the desired zones of interest. One way to accomplish this is through an expensive intelligent completion where feed through capabilities are required for production packers and wellheads. Another is to install a passive inflow control device that passively controls the outflow of water via the use of an orifice or some type of unique geometrical shape that is dependent on a pressure drop, providing the distribution along the intervals length. A third method is providing as much flow area as possible in the lower completion and allowing the water to go where it wants to go.
Laboratory testing and modeled simulated results for the quasi-intelligent flow control device will be presented in a manner that compares the different methods available along with hardware requirements to achieve an effective quasi-intelligent completion for water injectors.
