The Next Generation Inflow Control, the Next Step to Increase Oil Recovery on the Norwegian Continental Shelf

Abstract

Abstract One of the challenges on the Norwegian shelf is declining oil production and relatively low recovery rate. At current estimate, less than half of the oil will be remaining in the reservoir after shut down. A major challenge is to improve recovery from existing fields by developing and implementing new technologies that make mature and marginal fields more profitable. It's vital to develop technologies that can increase recovery before fields shut down. In most fields on the Norwegian continental shelf is the draining mechanism of pressure support from gas and / or water. This means that after a period of production, all wells will have gas and/or water breakthrough. As the breakthrough expands the production have to be limited due to excessive gas and/or water production. This means that production from the well have to be choked or stopped, even there is oil left along the wellbore. Inflow Control Device (ICD) and Autonomous Inflow Control Device (AICD) developed and installed by Hydro and Statoil have shown that the oil production and recovery can be increased significantly with better inflow control along the well. However, neither ICD nor AICD is able to shut off the unwanted gas and water production completely. The newly developed and patented Autonomous Inflow Control Valve (AICV) can shut off the unwanted fluid completely. This technology will probably be the next major step for increased oil recovery on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, in new and old wells. The new completion technology is presented and experimental test results with gas, oil and water are presented together with reservoir simulations that confirm that the AICV will give significantly increased recovery in field suffering from gas or water breakthrough.