Evaluation of completing horizontal oil wells with inflow control devices

Abstract

Oil production in horizontal wells currently has challenges such as excessive water production, which reduces the cumulative oil recovery, this occurs due to water coning in the reservoir which resulted to earlier water breakthrough in the wellbore. Various Down hole Flow control Devices (DFCs) including ICDs, AICDs, and AICVS are typically installed in the horizontal section of oil wells to mitigate the problem. The study of autonomous ICDs was done by comparing the long term flow performance of such devices against passive ICDs. The study was carried out with a reservoir model representing one horizontal well with three completion alternatives: open hole, ICD, and AICDs which were perforating in numerical reservoir model, these cases were run in the Eclipse simulator and their results were compared with the open hole. The results showed that the installation of Autonomous ICDs (AICDs) allowed producing more oil when compared against using passive ICDs. As it was found in three cases, for well X2, production with AICD increased the overall oil recovery by 257% and reduction of water cut to 42% as compared against an open hole completion, whereas production with ICD increased the overall oil recovery by 192% and reduction of water cut to 50% as compared against an open hole completion. The results proved that the installation of ICDs increased the net revenue comparing to open hole completion.