bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Best Environmental Practice Implementation, While Executing Seismic Exploration in Kuwait Offshore
Authors: Minhaj Rifad Ali , Al-Ajmi Bader 
Published: October 2015

Abstract
KOC conducted its first 2D Offshore Seismic Acquisition Survey over the State of Kuwait Offshore covering some of the Environmental Sensitive & restricted areas to explore the hydrocarbon potentials in Offshore Areas. The potential environmental effects, risks and control measures were designed to minimize/mitigate the actual and potential risks of the survey.
This Abstract outlines the industry best environmental Practices adopted during the various stages of the project for executing the Seismic Survey in the State of Kuwait Offshore Environment.
The project was first of kind in KOC using fleet of 12 Vessels for carrying out the Seismic Acquisition Survey Operations in the State of Kuwait Offshore and it faced many challenges during the different phases of the project. Various Methods, Procedures & Processes were followed to overcome these challenges by identifying & implementing industry best HSE standards in terms of Geophysical offshore Surveys, Implementing KOC’s HSE Management System Elements, Conducting a detailed Environmental Impact Assessment Study on the survey area, in identifying environmental aspects & identification, Waste management with respect to both national & International waste regulatory requirement in operating offshore.
The project was well planned & properly executed by identifying potential environmental and socio-economic impacts associated with the preparation, operation and abandonment regarding 2D marine seismic activities in the State of Kuwait offshore area, by identifying the Environmental Sensitive areas such as breeding grounds and shallow coral reefs located in the prospect area, it avoid the Acoustic disturbance, especially from Seismic High Pressure Guns on Marine Mammals etc. by following Joint Nature Conservation Committee guidelines for minimizing the risk of injury and disturbance to marine mammals from seismic surveys, the project followed soft start procedure for minimizing the risk of injury to marine mammals, an Offshore Mine Mitigation Measures and Information plan has been prepared to identify and take necessary actions on the possible EODs that may be present in offshore environment, initial hazard survey was carried out to identify significant gradients fishing areas and seafloor features. This helped to avoid and reduce the probability of disturbing the major fishing areas and hazards to specific bottom features.
In spite of many challenges encountered during the different phases of the project, the overall project performance remains @ more than Two Million LTI free Operations with Zero Environmental Incidents.
This paper can give the guidance/benchmark towards the best practices to be followed in terms of HSE for executing any future offshore projects in the State of Kuwait Waters. Investments in these Best Practices for seismic exploration results in fewer impacts and good stakeholder relations for later phases of exploration.
Five Years Journey of Advanced Completions in KOC
Authors: Siddiqui Mohammed A. , Al-Jasmi Ahmad K. , Al- Rasheedi Menwer M. , Al-Abdullah Hashem F. 
Published: October 2015

AbstractWith an objective to increase the production to 4.0 MM BOPD, Kuwait Oil Company is developing its fields with optimum technology solution. Technological innovations in E&P sector are on growing trend, based on which, KOC included "Realize the value from Technology" in the frame of its strategic objectives. The Key Performance Measure (KPM) of this objective is to adopt new technologies at a scale that ideally addresses the identified challenges. In view of this objective and associated KPM, it was decided to implement the advanced completion technologies in various reservoirs of the Company.KOC has several prolific reservoirs spread all over Kuwait. These reservoirs have mild to severe differences in rock properties and fluid characteristics. Burgan is the major Cretaceous sandstone structure extended all over the Kuwait with varied properties. The permeability of Burgan in general is in multiple Darcy. Its fluid viscosity in NK and SEK is low, in the range of 0.5–3 cP, while in WK it is 28–30cP. Minagish Oolite in West and Maududd in North are major carbonate reservoirs with varying rock and fluid properties. Horizontal wells are considered superior over conventional vertical wells due to augmented production through increased reservoir contact. However, these wells pose severe production challenges due to variations in permeability, reservoir pressure as well as frictional pressure drop along horizontal length. Hence, equalizing inflow, delay water breakthrough, minimizing heel-to-toe effects and maximizing the ultimate recovery are the primary challenges to be addressed to gain advantages of horizontal wells.One of the promising technologies to address these challenges is the advanced completions: inflow control device (ICD) and Interval control valves (ICV). The campaign of application of advanced completions in KOC was started in 2009 under the umbrella of R&T. The completions include various types of ICVs and ICDs. The latter includes passive ICD, Advanced ICD with sliding sleeve, Autonomous ICD without moving parts and ICD with stimulation port. The technology application was based on its value addition and Company‘s commercial group policies, while maintaining the technical superiority. The technology was trialed successfully in series in various fields and reservoirs through best practices and multi-disciplinary team approach. The focus was made to avoid drawbacks in pilot stage to avoid disapproval of the technology by management. Application of this technology led to multifold increase in sustained production in horizontal wells in all reservoirs and simultaneous reduction in water cut.This paper covers the results of the advanced completion pilots, application methodology & novel practices and selection criteria that ultimately led to tremendous increase in production and full-scale field implementation of the technology.
Smoke Free Testing Solution in Sour Heavy Oil Wells Protects Environment and Gains Production
Authors: Abdulrahman Khalid , Ibrahim Anwar , Acar Cagdas , Elgendi Mostafa , Abdellatif Mohammed 
Published: October 2015

Abstract
Umm Niqa field has heavy oil reserves in the shallow sandstone reservoir located in Northern Kuwait (NK) is probably the one of the important accumulation of heavy oil (μ &gt; 100 cP). Although a small resource in comparison to Canadian and Venezuelan heavy oil resource, these heavy oil reserves nonetheless represents a significant fraction of Kuwaiti resources1. Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) is aiming to develop and produce from this heavy oil reservoir with the latest technologies and methodologies in a safe and environmentally friendly way.
One of the important issue to reach KOCs overall company objective is to protect the environment of Kuwait by eliminating the effect of hydrocarbon burning from oil exploration operations which causes many forms of pollution, noise, toxic gases, soot, acid rain and carbon dioxide emissions. The high H2S content found in the reservoir increases the complexity of the operation and creates a dilemma over operational safety versus environmental concerns. KOC and Schlumberger has been developing strategies to reduce burning of oil having high Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) concentrations during well clean-up and well testing operations. The ultimate aim is to test the wells with zero flaring, which will also enable significant production gain by immediate flow of hydrocarbon to production. The developed methodology for testing of the sour heavy wells with zero burning of oil consist mainly: Efficient separation of the gas from oil, burning the separated gas separated and scavenging the oil from the remaining H2S afterwards, sending the scavenged oil to storage tanks and transfer it to the production facility. This methodology has been applied successfully in two heavy oil wells resulting over 6000 bbl of production gain and preventing emissions that could have arisen from that amount oil burning. This paper explains the methodology applied to cleanup and well testing operations in two wells from a sour heavy oil reservoir and the results obtained by application of the methodology in details.
Talent Gap: A Golden Opportunity for the GCC Oil Industry
Authors: Dutto Paolo Roberto , Sterli Laura , Schwarz Jacqueline 
Published: October 2015

Abstract
The release of talented PetroTechnical Professionals caused by the significant Oil price volatility represents a tremendous opportunity for the GCC Oil Industry to rejuvenate its demographics and close its historical Talent Gap (albeit still leveraging Expats) to nurture the future generation of Local resources.
The Talent Gap represents the gap between the ideal demographic distribution and the current and future expected availability of PTPs, with impacts on the delivery capabilities across the Oil Industry lifecycle.
To face the complexity of the Talent Gap challenges, it is necessary to leverage a full suite of approaches / tools based on field project experiences, listed as follows: –HR Strategic Planning;–Nationalisation of Resources;–Professional Roles;–Enhanced Competence Development;–First Line Leaders;–Manpower Contingency Plan;–Asset Competence Rebalancing.
Such tools are selected and combined based on a Company specific diagnostic approach taking into consideration its internal current situation and future strategic challenges, together with the changing Industry scenarios.
As far as the Middle East is concerned, the Talent Gap issue is more severe compared to the average of the Industry, as it has been present for a longer period mostly due to NOCs progressive change in their role from petroleum resource owners to active operators.
The current Oil volatility may prove to be a huge opportunity for the Middle East players allowing them to cover the Talent Gap by hiring resources on the down-slope, since the Middle East NOCs are the least affected by the low price of Oil.
Typical Process Challenges and Configurations for Sour Gas Mega Projects
Authors: Nick Amott , Stephen Mogose 
Published: October 2015

Abstract
The last decade has seen the initiation, start-up and ongoing development for major oil and gas production projects requiring processing of extremely sour gas. Projects in the UAE and CIS states (particularly Central Asia) require processing of well fluids containing up to 10 mole % CO2 and 23 mole % H2S, with the potential for future projects to see the H2S level increase further. These projects are being designed to treat and process flows of up to 1,000 MMscfd alongside production of oil and/or condensate, as well as NGL/LPG recovery. The world scale processing of sour gas leads to the largest ever sulphur plants installed, with total plant capacities up to 10,000 TPD of elemental sulphur. Kuwait with the Jurassic gas projects is embarking on major sour gas processing and is ideally placed to benefit from the experience and strategies developed in these mega projects.
This paper summarizes a selection of the key sour gas mega project metrics and outlines some of the areas where the very high H2S and organic sulphur content of the well fluid, and the high ambient temperatures, either impacted the design of the process units or required additional design features. The technical discussion in this paper uses information gained from Fluor's experiences on several sour mega projects and covers: Inlet gas conditioning to ensure there is no hydrocarbon condensation during the gas treating stepRemoval of H2S, CO2, COS, and mercaptans from the gas phaseCondensate/oil treating options for organic sulphur removalThe design of the world's largest Sulphur Recovery and Tail Gas Treating trains
Injectivity Loss in Polymer Floods: Causes, Preventions and Mitigations
Authors: Glasbergen Gerard , Wever Diego , Keijzer Efraim , Farajzadeh Rouhi 
Published: October 2015

AbstractPolymer flooding is an attractive option in hydrocarbon maturation plans. Several successful polymer floods and pilots have been implemented. One of the risks in polymer flooding is loss of injectivity. The consequences of loss of injectivity can be large. In conditions where matrix injection is required, reduction of injection rate may result in a much slower propagating polymer front and consequently later arrival of the anticipated oil bank eroding on the economic value of the EOR process. In extreme cases it can even lead to loss of the injector. Under fracturing conditions the loss of injectivity may be less noticeable, but it can lead to out of zone fracturing or fractures that grow too much in size and cause shortcuts to the producers or affect future infill well drilling.Reduction of injectivity is a generic concern in conventional waterfloods and can play an even larger factor when adding polymer to the waterflood. The increased viscosity of the injected polymer solution is the most obvious reason for an anticipated decrease in injectivity, but also other mechanisms can have an impact. These mechanisms include excessive polymer adsorption and associated permeability reduction, filtration of impurities in the polymer solution, fluid incompatibilities or reduced water quality.In this paper we will discuss the various causes for loss of injectivity and propose a structured approach for the associated prevention and mitigation options. Prevention includes (1) selection of the most appropriate polymer type; (2) best practices for preparation of the polymer solution; (3) safeguarding the water quality; and (4) enabling options for mitigation in case excessive injectivity loss is observed. The remediation step includes (1) the identification of the root-cause of an apparent injectivity problem; (2) the design of an appropriate clean-up treatment; (3) monitoring of the operation; and (4) implement measures to avoid repetition of the problem. We will include an overview of the preventive and mitigation options for the different causes of injectivity decline in polymer floods.
Unique Application of a Cementing Stage Tool with an Open Hole Multistage Completion System in Saudi Arabia
Authors: Siham Ahmed , Gardiner Colin , Wilson Stuart , Mueller Mitchell 
Published: October 2015

Abstract
Stage tools have been commonly used in North America for monobore completions to optimize economics. By cementing back the vertical and build sections of the wellbore, the requirement of the intermediate casing and liner hanger packer can be eliminated. An operator working in the K-1 carbonate formations of a massive field in eastern Saudi Arabia was examining a unique application of a stage tool to effectively cement and isolate a water-producing build section of a sidetracked lateral wellbore. The well incorporated a liner hanger packer with a multistage completion system. This paper will describe the distinct operational challenges encountered and how they were solved by redesigning an existing stage tool.
The well profile and construction specified that the liner had to be hung above the sidetrack point. Therefore, it was critical that the sequential operation of running the lower completion string, setting the liner hanger, releasing the liner hanger running tool, setting the open hole packers, cementing the upper liner section and then setting the top packer be completed with tremendous accuracy for a successful job. The operator selected a stage tool with a secondary contingency closure mechanism that did not limit the inside diameter through the system. This mechanism would ensure that all stages could still be stimulated if the secondary closure option was required. The use of the stage tool with a liner hanger system required some design modifications; the typical single foam plug, used to displace cement and close the tool in the standard version of the stage tool, was not an option. Instead, the operator required that a separate drill pipe dart and wiper plug assembly be used to displace cement through the drill pipe and the liner. The stage tool was, therefore, redesigned to close with a wiper plug launched from below the liner hanger packer.
After open hole conditioning, reaming and logging, the lower completion was run to setting depth and all equipment functioned without any issues. The problematic water producing zone was cemented and isolated and the stage tool was closed without the need to use the secondary closure mechanism. The stage tool was then milled out, leaving the well ready for stimulation. The redesigned tool enabled the operator to effectively cement the upper wellbore with no inside diameter restriction for stimulation.
This paper highlights the first introduction of cementing stage tool technology in conjunction with a multistage completion system to an operator in Saudi Arabia and the tool redesign required for accommodating a liner hanger packer in the wellbore. This method could also be applied to any type of lower completion such as sand management screens, inflow control devices or in conjunction with slotted or solid liners as an off-bottom cementing application.
National Oil Companies; Digital Oil Field Technology Transforming Closed & Obsolete Well to a 100% Oil Gain Value Proposition
Authors: Jamal Mariam Abdul-Raheem , Chetri Hom , Nair Sajan , Al-Subaiei Dalal Salman , Al-Zaabi Hamad Ahmad 
Published: October 2015

Abstract
By using Persistent and Daily Digital Oil Field Diagnostics techniques a KOC FD team transformed a 5 year closed well, into a 2000 mdb Oil Gain with a remarkable 0% water cut also been achieved.
Historically wells completed in Complex & heterogeneous carbonate reservoirs always surprised the NOC NK FD team with distinctive behavior and anomalies, noting also that the NOC's North Kuwait field is on the threshold of embarking upon a strategic ambitious water flood expansion and a systematic increase in injection volumes.
Within this process of increasing WI volumes the team realized that it is essential that producing wells are continuously analyzed with the latest Digital Field dynamic data and tangible decisions are made to manage the Voidage-Replacement Ratio. It was during this review process that Well-M was recognized to have a potential added value opportunity
This paper outlines both DOF technical review and management process's used in transforming what was seen as a DEAD and closed well into a daily valuable contributor to the NK asset and assist KOC meeting its production goals.
The paper closes in lessons learned and the next steps to embed this process into KOC's management processes.
Asset Integrity Enhancement Achieved by Integration of On Line Corrosion Monitoring Findings and On Stream Inspection Techniques
Authors: Al-Sulaiman Saleh , Al-Shammari Abdul Razzaq , Jaragh Amer , Khuraibu Yousef , Srinivasan Balasundar 
Published: October 2015

Abstract
Systematic internal corrosion monitoring, fluid analysis and on-stream inspection of process vessels and associated piping in operating plants at appropriate locations can provide valuable insight into the corrosion status and fitness level of the equipment and components. At the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), Internal Corrosion Monitoring activities and on stream inspection activities are carried out in all their facilities which consists of 22 Crude Processing Plants (or Gathering Centers), 4 Gas Processing Plants (or Booster Stations); 2 Effluent Water Disposal Plants, Seawater Treatment and Injection Plant, a vast network of pipelines carrying different products, as well as Early Production Facilities.
Internal corrosion monitoring is conducted with online monitoring equipment that include corrosion coupons, corrosion probes, bio probes, hydrogen patch probes etc. installed at key locations. Fluid analyses activities are also carried out for different processes to determine various key parameters such as pH, conductivity, total dissolved solids (TDS), total hardness, dissolved oxygen content, hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, corrosion and scale inhibitor residuals, Iron (Fe) content (total and dissolved), bacterial activity, etc.Corrosion data and fluid characteristics are analyzed for trends and appropriate recommendations issued to asset owners for corrective, preventive measures to mitigate corrosion and also to advise Inspection requirements based on findings.
On stream inspection activities include visual inspection and non-destructive testing (NDT) inspections using ultrasonic scanning by Automated Ultra-sonic Test (AUT) method and thickness verification of susceptible portions of piping circuits, equipment and related components in the system.
This paper highlights the significance of integrating the on line corrosion monitoring data and on stream inspection data resulting in proactive inspection intervention, repair and replacement of related piping and piping components in effluent water (EFW) system in one of the crude processing plant. Unscheduled plant shutdown and safety incidents were avoided due to proactive action. Further, it helped the company to initiate MOC process to implement proactive measures in similar piping systems at other facilities also.
Oil & Gas Contracts' Risks Negotiation in the Climate of Economic Recession
Authors: Abou-elkhair Gamal 
Published: October 2015

Abstract
For over a century and a half, oil has brought out both the best and Worst of our civilisation. It has been both boon and burden. Energy is the basis of our industrial society. Oil is the world's biggest and most pervasive business, the greatest of the Great industries that arose in the last decades of the nineteenth century. The demand for energy and petrochemicals correlates closely with general economic growth rates. The occurrence of recessions or other periods of low or negative economic growth will typically have a direct adverse impact on our results. Other factors that affect general economic conditions in the world or in a major region, such as changes in population growth rates or periods of civil unrest, also impact the demand for energy and petrochemicals.