bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Cementing Technology for Low Fracture Gradient and Controlling Loss Circulation
Authors: Ravi Kris , Savery Mark , Reddy B. R. , Whitfill Don 
Published: December 2007

AbstractThe main objectives in well construction are to maximize reservoir deliverability, reduce remedial jobs, and minimize nonproductive time (NPT) during drilling and cementing. One of the key factors to help maximize reservoir deliverability is the ability to reach the target reservoir depth with a minimum number of casing points and maximum production tubing size for the completion. Losses during drilling and cementing should be controlled to reduce unplanned casing points and minimize the NPT.These challenges are severe in depleted and low-fracture-gradient formations. Engineered solutions to control loss circulation and to place cement slurry in these environments are presented and discussed. Controlling loss of circulation during well construction is more than just selecting the proper type of lost circulation material (LCM). The engineered solution discussed in this paper correlates the formation and LCM properties for effective control of losses. In situations where LCM alone may not reduce the losses, the use of chemical sealants such as polymers and special cement systems are discussed. The special cement systems can be designed to meet the specific needs such as acid solubility for easy removal, thixotropy, and filtrate loss.Cement slurry for primary cementing across low-fracture-gradient and depleted formations should be designed to meet the density requirement so that it can be placed in the annulus and losses can be minimized. Ultra-low-density cement slurries, as low as 5.4 lbm/gal, are presented and discussed. Case histories are also presented to illustrate field implementation procedures, and the optimization of cement slurry designs to meet well requirements is discussed as well.The results presented in this paper can be applied in well construction to control loss circulation and cementing across depleted and low-fracture-gradient formations, which ultimately should help reduce NPT and maximize well production.
Site Safety Management of a Growing Drilling Activity: Is Continuous Improvement Achievable?
Authors: Saintpere Stephane , Touboul Nicolas , Hidayat Ramadhan 
Published: December 2007

Abstract
In 2002, TOTAL E&P management requested all the different divisions to implement actions plans to improve the HSE performance of the company.
The purpose of the paper is to present and discuss the HSE Performance of the drilling activity during this 3 years period through the examples of 2 different affiliates in Indonesia and Gabon.
TOTAL Indonesia has gone through an impressive increase of its activity (100 wells drilled per year) over the last 3 years, with the arrival of 5 drilling units (total of 9 drilling units on relatively long term contracts).
On the other hand, TOTAL Gabon is a mature affiliate, trying to extend the production plateau by performing re-entries on existing production installations during short term drilling campaigns.
The first part of the paper will present the particularities of the drilling activity on the different fields, the HSE context and organization, and the objectives set by the management.
The second part will establish an interesting comparison between the road accidents statistics in France and the accidents on the Indonesian drilling units. It will highlight the existence of the well known plateau which is reached and how it is reached. A selection of site examples (both from the previously mentioned Asian and African affiliates) will illustrate the various statements, and the distinction between hardware improvements (technical modifications, new equipment...) and soft improvements (procedures, safety meetings, hazards observation programs...) will be established.
The conclusion will discuss the fundamental question of the continuous improvement of the HSE Performance, in particular how to go beyond the plateau. Based on the analysis of this 3 years long intensive drilling period, it will present the 4 achievable objectives that should be given to an individual rig in a context where a "Zero Accident" workplace is the ultimate goal, but unfortunately still a concept.

Introduction
The drilling industry has evolved a lot in the last forty years, not only from a technological point of view but also from an HSE point of view. Nowadays, it is a common practice to drill extended reach wells or long horizontal drains navigated in thin reservoirs with high accuracy, not even talking about exotic trajectories necessary to drill on congested declining fields; however, an equally impressive progress was made on the protection of the workforce, thanks to the change of mentality and the ever growing legal environment. A 21st century drilling site, whether offshore or onshore, has nothing to do with what used to be the standard forty years ago: the impact on the environment is taken care of right at the pre-engineering phase and the protection of personnel on-site during the whole life of the drilling project is of highest importance.
A New Approach for Field Surveillance: Enhanced Monitoring Associating Smart Alarms to Produce More Oil
Authors: Lentini A. , Fumia G. , Malonga H. , Okassa F. , Le Cann J. P. , Lessi J. 
Published: December 2007

Abstract
The management of producing wells activated with ESP pumps has to take into account several problems: limited pump run life, production losses due to multi ESP failure and shut in wells.
Monitoring of production and pump parameters is common use in the oil industry, but real time monitoring systems undoubtedly provide operators with the possibility of improvements of production conditions because the easy and rapid access to data allows engineers to plan effective and timely remedial jobs.
This paper is a case history of a field test performed in an unmanned platform of a brown field with producing wells activated by electrical submersible pumps and shows the advantages related to the application of this innovative technology in terms of early diagnosis and problem solution.
The methodology includes the following sequential stages: Design and installation of an ad hoc surveillance system with remote control and Multiphase Meter;Monitoring of several flow periods to identify different well behaviors: Stable flow, Anomalous Flow and No flow conditions. On the basis of stable flow conditions, the regular behavior is set using the well and pump performance;Identification of the base line reference values for the 2 main parameters (Tubing head pressure and Current) during different well behaviors;Smart Alarms Setting to detect abnormal behavior and identify related problems. The smart alarms status can then be directly sent to field production supervisors and decision makers.
The pilot duration was 3 months long and the benefits directly related to the application of the Smart Alarms system were the following: oil production increase ≈ 10% − 20%production losses avoided ≈ 1500reduction of OPEX in terms of savings ≈ 1,000 K€pump run life increase not quantified due the test's short duration
The advanced information provided to the decision makers brought additional benefits to oil company leading to early production recovery, improvement of well inflow and outflow performance knowledge.
The Smart Alarms approach can be also applied to other well typologies and data sources.
Phase Behavior Study of Hydrocarbon/Water/Methanol Mixtures at Reservoir Conditions
Authors: Bang V. , Pope G. A. , Sharma M. M. 
Published: December 2007

Abstract
This paper presents a study of gas condensate hydrocarbon mixtures and the effect of water, methanol and isopropanol on phase behavior. Very little data is available on the phase behavior of hydrocarbon-water-methanol mixtures at the high temperatures typical of these reservoirs. Such data are needed for compositional reservoir simulations of well treatments to optimize the performance of solvent treatments of blocked wells. Constant composition expansion experiments were performed to measure the phase behavior of hydrocarbons-water-methanol mixtures up to 300 °F. The effects of temperature, pressure and water and methanol concentration on the phase behavior were measured. The Peng-Robinson equation-of-state was used to model hydrocarbon-water-methanol mixtures. The binary interaction parameters were tuned to fit the data and found to show a linear variation with temperature. The binary interaction parameters and temperature-dependent volume shift parameters are the key parameters to model these complex polar mixtures. Both the classical van-der-Waals and the Huron-Vidal mixing rules were used and found to give good agreement with the data. Phase behavior experiments performed on hydrocarbon-water-isopropanol mixtures showed that isopropanol decreases the aqueous phase volume fraction and increases the liquid hydrocarbon phase volume fraction compared to the analogous hydrocarbon-water-methanol mixtures. These data are needed to predict the conditions under which methanol/isopropanol treatments can be successfully applied in gas wells to remove water and condensate blockage.
Optimizing Oil and Gas Production by Intelligent Technology
Authors: Zhu D. , Furui K. 
Published: December 2007

AbstractIntelligent completion technology, namely permanent downhole monitoring and flow control devices that allow continuous monitoring and control of well flowing system, has become more and more popular today in oil and gas wells to assist well and reservoir performance management. The applications of intelligent well today are much beyond the original vision of the technology that measurement and control become possible without intervention and their associated costs by installing permanent downhole monitoring and flow control devices connected to the surface. In addition to these advantages, the technology has been used to optimize gas lift and ESP systems, sand control, formation damage control, water breakthrough, gas coning problems, and crossflow eliminations.This paper summarizes the current available intelligent technology, describes the production optimization workflow process from data acquisition to optimization and control, and focuses on a discussion of the effective approach of deploying the technology for different types of well completions and drainage volume characteristics. The majority of previous publications on intelligent completion technology have been in two areas: (1) identification of well production problems; and (2) control of the well flowing system to meet operational constraints and limits and/or improve existing well performance to higher levels. Many field examples showed that the monitoring function and the control function of intelligent completions have been applied independently. The efficiency of the integrated system could be greatly improved if monitoring and control systems are interactively integrated. Monitoring can directly guide control schemes and validate the results of their executions. The examples in the paper show that with simple interpretation of monitored data, control of well operation can be less time consuming and more effective. Likewise, downhole monitoring needs to be used with control systems so that the problems identified by monitoring systems can be treated accordingly. The approaches presented in the paper will help to maximize the value of intelligent completion.
Implementing an Undergraduate Minor in Energy
Authors: Fanchi J. R. 
Published: December 2007

Abstract
A problem facing society today is the need to develop and implement a strategy that will provide energy to meet future global energy needs and satisfy environmental objectives. The future energy industry is expected to rely on a variety of energy sources ranging from fossil and nuclear energy to renewable energy. Most undergraduate technical programs result in educational specialization that makes it difficult for students in a particular technical major to appreciate the role of their specialty in either a broad technical or societal context. An undergraduate energy minor can expose undergraduate students to all of the energy options that may be encountered in the 21st century energy mix. The purpose of this paper is to describe the implementation of an undergraduate minor in energy.
New Approach to Simulating Multicomponent Fluids Flow to Hydraulic Fractured Well
Authors: Dinariev O. , Shandrygin A. , Rudenko D. , Tertychyi V. , Evseev N. , Klemin D. 
Published: December 2007

AbstractHigh accurate reservoir simulation is required to better describe multiphase fluids flow to hydraulic fractured wells and improve the development of gas-condensate field. In recent years, numerous research efforts were focused on the developing efficient numerical scheme for full-field simulation and have been facing the problem of tremendous computational resources used to simulate realistic hydraulic fracture details for better and more reliable production optimization. Most of the existent numerical models are based on 3D computational grid that is used for the whole reservoir with grid refining in fracture domain and couldn't completely account all phenomenon within reasonable computational time.New approach for simulation of multiphase multicomponent steady state flow around the hydraulic fractured well is proposed. The approach is based on the splitting the thermodynamic and hydrodynamic problems of multiphase and multicomponent fluids flow. It is also assumed that conductive fracture could be described by 2D surface in 3D permeable formation. Additional coordinate system inside fracture allows to simulate the heterogeneous internal structure of fracture and account the details of the exchange process between fracture and reservoir. Relative permeability and non-Darcy effects in fracture and formation and non-uniform fracture conductivity could be taken account as well.Proposed model can be used for simulation of the steady-state multiphase multicomponent flow to hydraulic fracture of any arbitrary shape. Excellent agreement with commercial dynamic simulators was achieved for gas condensate flows simulation. Significant decrease in computational time in comparison with the existent simulators had been achieved.
An Empirical Model for Predicting Crude Sludging Potential Caused by Acidizing
Authors: Garrouch A. A. , Malallah A. H. , Al-Enizy M. M. 
Published: December 2007

Abstract
Acid stimulation experimental data collected on 231 crude samples from various oil fields were used in this study to formulate an empirical model for quantifying the amount of asphaltic sludge precipitating as a consequence of an acidizing job. Data showing the individual effects of acid strength, acid type, solvent preflush, iron control additives, ferrous and ferric ion concentrations, mutual solvent concentration, corrosion inhibitor type, and surfactant types have been used as the basis for formulating an empirical model for the weight percent of asphaltene sludge. The acid-induced sludge model has been validated with stimulation data from the Endicott field. The model is then used to study the effect of various factors on sludging.
A 15% HCL concentration is confirmed to be the threshold for serious acid-induced sludge. Hydrofluoric acid exhacerbates sludging except at low concentrations less than 3%. Asphaltene sludging is promoted by the presence of ferrous and ferric ions. Ferric ions cause more sludging. The addition of iron control additives like citric acid, EDTA, and NTA is found to cause sludging. Erythorbic extractant causes less sludging than any of the iron control additives commonly used. The three surfactant types investigated (Fluoro-surfactant, Non-emulsifier, wetting agent) are found to have an identical effect on sludging. The use of a mutual solvent concentration greater than 5% is found to increase the sludging tendency.
Acid-induced asphaltene sludging is becoming an increasing cause of oil well stimulation treatment failure. The proposed model predicts quantitatively the effect of various acid additives on crude oil sludging, and may be used as a designing tool for an acidizing job with minimum sludging potential.
A New Approach for Field Surveillance: Enhanced Monitoring Associating Smart Alarms To Produce More Oil
Authors: Lentini A. , Fumia G. , Malonga H. , Okassa F. , Le Cann J. P. , Lessi J. 
Published: December 2007

Abstract
The management of producing wells activated with ESP pumps has to take into account several problems: limited pump run life, production losses due to multi ESP failure and shut in wells.
Monitoring of production and pump parameters is common use in the oil industry, but real time monitoring systems undoubtedly provide operators with the possibility of improvements of production conditions because the easy and rapid access to data allows engineers to plan effective and timely remedial jobs.
This paper is a case history of a field test performed in an unmanned platform of a brown field with producing wells activated by electrical submersible pumps and shows the advantages related to the application of this innovative technology in terms of early diagnosis and problem solution.
The methodology includes the following sequential stages:
Design and installation of an ad hoc surveillance system with remote control and Multiphase Meter; Monitoring of several flow periods to identify different well behaviors: Stable flow, Anomalous Flow and No flow conditions. On the basis of stable flow conditions, the regular behavior is set using the well and pump performance; Identification of the base line reference values for the 2 main parameters (Tubing head pressure and Current) during different well behaviors; Smart Alarms Setting to detect abnormal behavior and identify related problems. The smart alarms status can then be directly sent to field production supervisors and decision makers.
The pilot duration was 3 months long and the benefits directly related to the application of the Smart Alarms system were the following:
oil production increase          ≈ 10%-20% production losses avoided        ≈ 1500 m3 reduction of OPEX in terms of savings    ≈ 1,000 K€ pump run life increase not quantified due the test's short duration
The advanced information provided to the decision makers brought additional benefits to oil company leading to early production recovery, improvement of well inflow and outflow performance knowledge.
The Smart Alarms approach can be also applied to other well typologies and data sources.
History Matching Using Face-Recognition Technique Based on Principal Component Analysis
Authors: Yadav S. 
Published: December 2007

Abstract
This paper presents a novel methodology of history matching using the face recognition technique based on Principal Component Analysis, which is currently used in computer vision applications. During history matching the spatial reservoir parameters at grid blocks are adjusted in order to obtain a simulated response close to the observed response. This implies that the optimization problem can be prohibitively large and inefficient.
In order to circumvent this problem, a set of multiple geologically plausible permeability realizations or the training images for a given depositional environment are obtained. These realizations could be quite different, yet they are not completely random. In spite of their differences, there are characteristic geological patterns, which occur in theses realizations. Such patterns could be extracted out by means of a mathematical tool called Principal Component Analysis. These characteristic geological patterns can then be combined in different combinations to obtain the new plausible realization. The goal is then to find the weights used to combine the characteristic geological patterns such that difference in the historical data and the simulated response is reduced. Therefore the history matching problem is now reduced to optimization problem in a much smaller parameter space. The number of parameters to be optimized is reduced to the number of dominating geological patterns present. The new realization is automatically constrained to the given geological environment since it is a combination of its characteristic features. Also this approach can depict patterns of geological continuity consisting of strongly connected, curvi-linear geological objects such as channels or fractures, unlike the variogram based two-point statistical covariance models.
This approach mimics the "face recognition" or the "voice recognition" technique, which are already being successfully applied in their respective domains. The proposed technique has been successfully tested in a fluvial depositional environment.
Robust and Efficient Simulation of Formation-Tester Measurements with a Rigorous Compositional Simulation Code
Authors: Malik M. , Torres-Verdín C. , Sepehrnoori K. 
Published: December 2007

Abstract
This paper describes the development, testing, and successful application of a new compositional code for the numerical simulation of oil-base mud invasion and formation tester measurements that involve arbitrary miscibility between oil-base mud and native oil. The simulator assumes axial-symmetric variations of petrophysical properties as well as axial-symmetric flow-rate sources and boundary conditions. However, there are no restricting assumptions to the degree of miscibility between the fluids involved in the simulations. We solve the time-space evolution of component concentration with a time-marching implicit pressure explicit concentration (IMPEC) scheme. This method of solution considers the complete equations of state and implements rigorous and efficient flash calculations to describe the thermo-dynamical evolution of the various compositional phases due to space-time variations of pressure and concentration.
Simulations described in this paper consider the process of oil-base mud-filtrate invasion into reservoirs containing mixtures of connate water and oil. Subsequently, we simulate formation tester measurements by enforcing fluid withdrawal through the dual-packer section of the tester. Measurements consist of fluid pressure, fractional flow rates, fluid density, and fluid viscosity. Examples of application include homogenous and multi-layer formations as well as a capillary-transition zone. Comparison of simulation results against those obtained with a commercial code confirms the efficiency, accuracy, and reliability of our simulator.
Sensitivity analysis indicate that time evolution of fractional flow rates, fluid density, and fluid viscosity measured with the formation tester remain influenced by the petrophysical properties of the formation as well as by relative permeability and capillary pressure. The simulations described in this paper accurately predict the measurement times necessary for the acquisition of clean samples of native formation oil in the presence of invasion and heterogeneous spatial distributions of petrophysical and rock-fluid properties.