Abstract
There is no well operation that is truly non-damaging. Any invasive operation, even production phase itself, may be damaging to well productivity. An interesting case was found in L-Field which is located in South Sumatra, Indonesia. All four wells are predicted to cease to flow after five-year production and artificial lift have to be installed to prevent steep decline in oil production. Unfortunately, all of wells’ productivity index (PI) decreased post well intervention and therefore, couldn’t achieve target. The PI was continuously decreasing during production phase and aggravated the decline in oil production.
Remediation action by systematic approach was applied to solve the problem. Early diagnostic revealed some potential causes through evaluation of both production and well treatment data. Laboratory test such as mineralogy analysis, crude composition and water analysis, solubility and compatibility test have been conducted and clarified the root cause that formation damage occurred in multiple mechanism related to incompatibility of the workover fluid and organic deposition. Then, possible well treatments were listed with pros and cons by considering post water production related to the carbonate reservoir properties.
Subsequently, chemical matrix injection was ranked based on less possibility of water breakthrough risk. Diesel fuel and de-emulsifier injection was decided as the first treatment in order to remove formation damage caused by organic deposition. The rate was increased temporary with Water Cut (WC) remained at the same level. The subseqeuent effort was to inject low reaction chelating acid and the result showed temporary improvement and the production did achieve significant gain. Finally, the third attempt indicated promising results with the injection of aromatic solvent followed by chelating acid. The well productivity was increased to more than 20 times of the pre treatment levels. The method can be replicated to other affected wells with similar damage mechanism.
High vertical permeability over horizontal permeability becomes a real threat in carbonate strong water driver reservoir in L-field. Thus, matrix acidizing treatment has to be carefully applied to prevent unwanted water production. Non-aggressive and slow reaction acid were chosen to prevent face dissolution reaction that leads to water breakthrough.
