Abstract
Reviving production from declining fields has become a major activity for oil and gas companies. This requires a focused multi-disciplinary team to arrive at a proper understanding of the reservoirs, identify for any remaining bypassed oil and the right technical solution. The West Lutong field is the oldest offshore field in the Baram Delta region located some 12-km offshore Sarawak, Malaysia. It has been on production since 1968 barely two years after the field discovery. The field has been under continuous development ever since, producing at 56000 bopd at its peak in 1972. Currently, the field is producing at 8000 bopd and is on a slowly declining trend. The field comprises a series of multiple stacked deltaic to shallow marine sandstone reservoirs that contain both oil and gas. The observed drive mechanisms consist of a combination of gas cap expansion, water drive and solution gas drive. In production time some of the units have been seen to be preferential swept. In June 1997 a multi-disciplinary West Lutong team was formed to identify bypassed oil and propose additional development. This paper focuses on the occurences of the bypassed oil and the remaining potential. This has enabled the formulation of an optimized development proposal to revitalize an aging field.
