Radial Jet Drilling Improves Injectivity & Conformance in High Permeability Layered Sandstone Reservoir Across Mangala, Bhagyam & Aishwarya Onshore Fields in India
Authors: Nagar Ankesh , Savelyev Anatoly , Mukerjee Aditya , Hatchell Ian , Jelsma Henk , Maniar Chintan , Bhad Nitin , Pathak Shashank , Shrivastava Pranay , Nekkanti Satish , Bohra Avinash , Vermani Sanjeev 
Published: November 2020

Poor conformance & injectivity sustenance is a major concern of Mangala, Bhagyam & Aishwarya (MBA) fields. The presence of high permeability streaks or thief layers between injection and production wells typically results in pre-mature water breakthrough, high water cut and deficient volumetric sweep. As a result, significant oil volumes in the reservoir may not be contacted by the injection fluid. Another concern is of low VRR (Voidage Replacement Ratio) in some of the layers due to reduced injectivity in those sands. Consequently, it has led to poor recovery from those sands. It is also a growing problem with the polymer deposition taking place in the wellbore particularly Mangala (undergoing full-field polymer flooding), leading to challenging wellbore cleanup operations.

Several methods have been used in the past, both mechanical and chemical to improve the treatment fluids during stimulation. In this paper, we introduce a novel technique; Radial Jet Drilling (RJD) for Injection & Conformance Improvement which is practical & effective and has resulted in injection improvement of greater than 100% and at-least 3x sustained treatment result over conventional techniques performed earlier. The technique involves running in hole the RJD deflector shoe on jointed pipe (typically 2-3/8") to the target depth & correlated. This is followed up with high pressure coiled tubing to rig up over the jointed pipe string and perform operations in two steps:Milling to establish Casing exitJetting to create lateral of desired length (30 to 100m)

Both operations require separate runs with different downhole assemblies on coiled tubing. The setup allows the operator to jet with fluid of choice depending upon the geological & well fluid understanding. The selection of depths to create desired laterals depends upon sand thickness, formation dip, sand continuity, well deviation, cement quality & few other factors which shall be discussed in this paper. As a result of the created laterals, the injection fluid experiences low pressure drops and bypasses damaged zones/permeability barriers; which ultimately results in improved injection & conformance leading to better sweep efficiency. The other advantage of the technique is the relatively easy integration of tool with existing infrastructure i.e. small horsepower rigs.

This paper will document the physics behind the technique, treatment design considerations and implementation for stimulations performed across the fields using Radial jet drilling. Particular attention is paid to multiple injector well stimulation case studies from these fields, the challenges faced, the solutions implemented, results & inferences drawn using post job surveillance. The results observed across the field w.r.t injection & its sustenance performance is consistently greater over conventional methods used earlier.