Integrating Technology and Resources - Optimizing Clastic Reservoir Exploitation

Early clastic-reservoir field-development practices involve commingled production across several stacked reservoir units. This commonly leads to early high water production as clean sandstone reservoirs generally exhibit strong bottomwater drive. In most cases, the wells are prematurely shut-in leaving behind valuable reserves. Today, horizontal wells are a well-recognized methodology to improve hydrocarbon recovery by maximizing reservoir contact. However, water breakthrough is not isolated in horizontal wells due to water coning from imbalanced lateral fluid drawdown. In practice, flow rate are increased to maintain production economics. Along with high water handling and correspondingly low hydrocarbon recovery, operators are oftentimes discouraged from pursuing such ventures. It becomes apparent that for effective exploitation, horizontal wells must be placed as far as possible from the OWC. Developments in logging-while-drilling technology have enabled accurate well placement below the reservoir trap while mapping OWCs. Completion technologies can be introduced to delay or to regulate water breakthrough. While these technologies individually adds value to horizontal well production, in combination, they can be customized to enhance recovery and prolong the life span of a well; effectively achieved by strategic planning with simulations, realtime geosteering well designs and integrating postjob well-placement results to completion-optimization workflows.