Abstract
Decisions concerning future development options at the Kuparuk River Field are complex and interrelated. Various development strategies are being evaluated. To help address these issues, a facilities model has been added to a full field reservoir simulator. Facility limits are used with a well ranking system to shut in marginal production when equipment capacity constraints are exceeded. The model simulates field operating strategies which maximize production. Operational strategies are modelled using (1) a wellbore hydraulic routine that enables bottom hole pressures to change (reflecting the benefit of various gas lift rates), (2) a gas lift allocation correlation that was determined from field data, and (3) a gas management routine which optimizes oil production while honoring gas capacity constraints and field gas lift needs. These gas management and hydraulic features are essential to properly evaluate future projects in a gas capacity constrained environment and can be applied to other reservoir simulation tools. An example of how the reservoir simulator is being used to address a key issue in the large scale facility expansions evaluation is included.
