Laying the Foundations of a Digital Gas Field Development in a Greenfield Cluster Using Integrated Modelling: A Case Study
Authors: Ramdzani Rena Alia , Talabi Oluwole A. , Chua Adeline Siaw Hui , Lawrence Edwin 
Published: October 2021

Field X located in offshore South East Asia, is a deepwater, turbidite natural gas greenfield currently being developed using a subsea tieback production system. It is part of a group of fields anticipated to be developed together as a cluster. Due to the nature of this development, several key challenges were foreseen: i) subsurface uncertainty ii) production network impact on system deliverability and flow assurance iii) efficient use of high frequency data in managing production. The objective of this study was to demonstrate a flexible and robust methodology to address these challenges by integrating multiple realizations of the reservoir model with surface network models and showing how this could be link to "live" production data in the future.

This paper describes the development and deployment of the solutions to overcome those challenges. Furthermore, the paper describes the results and key observations for further recommendation in moving forward to field digitalization.

The process started with a quality check of the base case dynamic reservoir model to improve performance and enable multiple realization runs in a reasonable timeframe. This was followed by sensitivity and uncertainty analysis to obtain 10 realizations of the subsurface model which were integrated with the steady-state surface network model. Optimization under uncertainty was then performed on the integrated model to evaluate three illustrative development scenarios. To demonstrate extensibility, two additional candidate reservoirs for future development were also tied in to the system and modelled as a single integrated asset model to meet the anticipated gas delivery targets. Next, the subsurface model was integrated with a multiphase transient network model to show how it can be used to evaluate the risk of hydrate formation along the pipeline during planned production start-up. As a final step, in-built application programming interface (API) in the integration software was used to perform automation, enabling the integrated model to be activated and run automatically while being updated with sample "live" production data.

At the conclusion of the study, the reservoir simulation performance was improved, reducing runtime by a factor of four without significant change in base case results. The results of the coupled reservoir to steady-state network simulation and optimization showed that the network could constrain reservoir deliverability by up to 4% in all realizations due to back pressure, and the most optimum development scenario was to delay first gas production and operate with shorter duration at high separator pressure. With the additional reservoirs in the integrated model, the production plateau could be extended up to 15 years beyond the base case without exceeding the specified water handling limit. For hydrates risk analysis, the differences between hydrate formation and fluid temperature indicated there was a potential risk of hydrate formation, which could be reduced by increasing inhibitor concentration. Finally, the automation process was successfully tested with sample data to generate updated production forecast profiles as the "new" production data was fed into the database, enabling immediate analysis.

This study demonstrated an approach to improve forecasting and scenario evaluation by using multiple realizations of the reservoir model coupled to a surface network. The study also demonstrated that this integrated model can be carried forward to improve management of the field in the future when combined with "live" data and automation logic to create a foundation for a digital field deployment.