Practical Applications of Real-time Surface Monitoring in Mature Offshore Brown Field for Production Optimization

Field B is located 40 km offshore Sarawak in the north-western part of the Baram Delta Province. The field was discovered in July 1967 and started production in 1972. Digitalization efforts to the field was introduced in 2014 to enhance surveillance scope as offshore environment posed numerous challenges in data gathering. Real-time monitoring was implemented and has greatly boosted the response time for well issues and elevated efficiency in production improvement efforts such as gaslift optimization. Two case studies were chosen to reflect on the practical applications of real-time surface monitoring. In case 1, well B-1 is producing on gaslift and it was flowed back post stimulation job with higher casing pressure. Wellhead pressure was unstable and upon comparison with established pressure envelope, well was found to be injecting gaslift from multiple points which is inefficient gaslift utilization. For case 2, real-time surface monitoring has helped to indicate tubing-casing communication when casing pressure in well B-2 was observed to be increasing in relation to wellhead pressure; enabling the issue to be handled earlier before it worsens. Both cases have evidently proved that real-time surface monitoring is both practical and advantageous in field applications.