A Novel Workflow for Intelligent Well Inflow Control Valve Design by Integrating Reservoir Dynamics to Facilitate Proactive Reservoir Management in Minagish Field, West Kuwait (2014)

Abstract The appropriate inflow control valve (ICV) design plays an important role for achieving adequate proactive reservoir management, production management and improving oil recovery. The smart completion consisting of custom designed inflow control valves along with downhole gauges are proven to be the great tool for maximizing sweep efficiency in Minagish Field, West Kuwait. The demonstrated benefits include reduction of unwanted water production, equalization of inflow profile, elimination of cross flow across laterals in multilateral wells and optimization of water injection allocation resulted in increasing sustained well productivity and maximizing oil recovery. Further the downhole gauges provides required reservoir surveillance data on real time for effective reservoir and production monitoring. Moreover the real time surveillance and production control capabilities over entire well life enabled ability to take necessary actions at right time for facilitate defensive as well as proactive reservoir management. In addition the intelligent wells are proven to control the distribution of oil, water and gas in a well between different layers, compartments or reservoirs having high degrees of anisotropy and heterogeneity. The smart completions having optimally designed downhole inflow control valves are implemented in oil producers, water injectors, multilateral wells with ESP (Electrical Submersible Pump) and smart dump flood water injectors in Minagish Field. An integrated novel workflow is developed and multi-disciplinary team approach was followed for planning and design of smart completions by considering reservoir properties, geological data, petro-physical data and related uncertainties. Further the various production scenarios, well management scenarios, reservoir dynamics, reservoir uncertainties and reservoir management objectives were considered to select the most appropriate flow trim design of multi-position inflow control valves for wells having multi-zone intelligent completion, smart multilaterals and smart dump flood completions. Also, the right flow control option is included in well design, as it has an impact on the number of zones/intervals that can be realistically controlled in one well, and may affect the overall reliability of the integrated system. Previous field experiences have shown that the resulting benefits are diminished when the front end engineering does not considered suitable inflow control valve design and choke setting tailored to reservoir requirements and inherent uncertainties. The consequences of poor inflow control valve design is realized and found that only few choke positions are usable resulting in non-optimum well performance. Lessons learned from previous wells were incorporated in the new smart wells design and integrated workflow is developed by including the reservoir properties, reservoir dynamic response (e.g. water encroachment and time to breakthrough) and well operating constraints. The paper covers a novel workflow for inflow control valve design and chokes setting stepping distribution that assimilates reservoir properties, wellbore and production constraints. Also the paper details about established reservoir management and production management achieved by properly designed intelligent completions supported with long term well performance results.