Abstract
The Bonga field has produced more than 275 MMstb in the last 4 years, a major contributor to deepwater oil produced offshore Nigeria to date. High production rates are being sustained as a result of the pressure maintenance scheme based on waterflooding that was implemented from the onset of production. Fully treated seawater is injected from 13 subsea high rate water injector wells daisy-chained on two separate water injection lines. To date more than 370 MMbbls of treated seawater has been injected in the field.
High rates in water injector wells can only be achieved through fractured injection. Industry experience so far shows that matrix injection mode leads to declining well injectivity. However, for effective reservoir management, it is required that fractures created are not excessively large to cause integrity concerns on nearby seals, reservoirs and wells. Hence, it is necessary to predict the fracture dimensions for corresponding injection rates and pressures for effective waterflood management. The size (length and height) of an induced fracture depends on several parameters.
This paper describes the use of an in-house fractured injection tool for estimating lateral and vertical extension of waterflood-induced fractures in Bonga wells. History matching of field data is performed to calibrate the model. Information from Pressure Transient Analysis and well interventions is used to improve model prediction. The analysis shows that with continuous high rate injection, long contained fractures are created in these high Darcy sands. Prediction results are used to define operating envelopes for these high rate water injector wells, with rates constrained in some wells to prevent induced fractures breaching the top shale layer.