Abstract
Bonga field located in deepwater of the Niger Delta in Nigeria, started production in November 2005 and from inception with sustained water injection for pressure maintenance. By 2006, Production Universe which is a state-of-the-art Shell production monitoring and allocation tool was deployed as part of the Bonga Smart Field's Foundation Mark-1 implementation and this has been used for Bonga production allocation process. The Smart Fields Foundation Mark-1 project aimed to provide the Bonga asset with solid data and models for production surveillance and optimisation.
Accurate production allocation has always posed a threat to efficient well and reservoir management in the oil and gas in industry. The traditional approach to production back-allocation to individual wells and reservoir is usually based on ‘one-point’ well test data with the clear assumption that production from this well(s) remains constant (regardless of the prevailing situation affecting this well) for the period of interest. Meanwhile, in Bonga with the support of a real-time ‘virtual meter’ called Production Universe, we have been able to demonstrate significant improvement in our production allocation process as shown in the improved production reconciliation factor between estimated and measured field production data. Bonga is a field with varying flow rates in the producer wells with very fast response to changes in injection rates. Consequently, accurate production allocation significantly improved the Bonga well and Reservoir Management process.
The result of this paper is empirically based supported by data and shared experiences in Bonga field and could be applied in other similar operating assets with the benefit of improved production allocation.
