Dual Parallel Simultaneous Injection and Production SIP Completion in Single Wellbore Reduces Development Costs and Accelerates Production

Abstract

Abstract In Kuwait, the traditional approach to Field Development has been to drill wells, whether Vertical or Horizontal, Single or Dual, with completions dedicated to either Production or Injection. However, as increasingly more wells are being drilled to develop the stacked reservoirs, surface infrastructure is growing in complexity with regard to Production Flowline routing, Gathering Facility location, Satellite Manifold placement, Water Injection distribution lines routing, and access road construction. Also, since the reservoir stack is a combination of areally extensive Carbonates overlying shale & channel sand sequences, optimum surface locations of Injectors for one reservoir is now increasingly conflicting with the optimum surface locations for the Producer of another reservoir. The North Kuwait team presented options that could reduce the requirement for excessive wellbores for both new Producers and Injectors. One of which is the utilization of a single wellbore to both Produce Oil from one reservoir and Inject Water into another reservoir simultaneously. This novel approach utilized the most popular Dual Completion equipment, but rather than produce or inject concurrently from separate reservoirs or layers, production & injection are achieved simultaneously through either tubing string. Tubing movement calculations were made to ensure that the resultant axial tubing forces exerted by simultaneously injecting cold water and producing hot reservoir fluid would not cause the Dual packer to prematurely unset. This unique completion has several advantages which include the production acceleration from an adjacent reservoir/layer that would have been postponed for the life of the Injector and the elimination of the drilling of a new producer to access the oil from an adjacent reservoir/layer to the target injection zone. Additionally, the elimination of the drilling of an Injector well if its optimum subsurface location is close to, or coincides with, an existing Producer from an adjacent layer, and the reduction in access road construction and location preparation costs. This strategy will significantly reduce Unit Development Costs while concurrently ramping up production levels. With simple conversion workovers, rather than drilling new wells, Oil Production potential that is presently unexploited in dedicated Injector wells can immediately be realized. Pressure support Injection can be initiated as soon as distribution injection lines are made available via similar conversion workovers.