Real-Time Monitoring and Control of Water Influx to a Horizontal Well Using Advanced Completion Equipped With Permanent Sensors

Abstract

Summary We have tested new technologies for real-time monitoring and control of water influx to horizontal wells with sand-control completions. In a thin oil column in Indiana, we drilled a horizontal well and completed it openhole with sand screens and a gravel pack. External casing packers (ECPs) subdivided the annulus into three zones. An electrical valve, which also records the annular and tubing pressure, controls inflow to each zone. Twenty-one centralizers acted as electrodes to form a resistivity array that spans the 694-ft-long completion. The well was also equipped with a fiber-optic distributed-temperature-sensing (FODTS) system. The well has been produced since November 2001 and provides real-time data that are shared across a geographically distributed network and used to optimize the production of oil from the well. The data from the pressure sensors and the resistivity array have been jointly interpreted to dynamically update the static reservoir model, which was initially based on observations in offset vertical wells. The pressures recorded from the three electrical valves provide high-frequency data to characterize the near-well heterogeneity of the formation. These data are critical to computing an optimum production strategy. Zonal well tests, combined with interference testing between zones and wells, enable the estimation of communication between zones and the productivity index (PI) of each zone. The resistivity data enabled detection of water-saturation changes both in the formation and in the wellbore. The completion technology tested in this well offers the potential to intelligently operate horizontal sand-control completions by combining real-time monitoring with downhole inflow control.