A recent burst of technical creativity has produced an abundance of new ways to revitalize old fields and
tap bypassed pockets of oil and gas. However, identifying the best solutions requires a team of experts
with a broad range of skills that cross the traditional boundaries of petroleum engineering disciplines.
David Hill
Eric Neme
Christine Ehlig-Economides
Sugar Land, Texas, USA
Miguel Mollinedo
OXY
Maracaibo, Venezuela
Over the last ten years, new technologies
and field strategies have converged,
enabling operators to give new life to old
wells. Now, reviving production from
declining fields has become a major activity for oil and gas companies, and one that
requires more support to identify the right
technical solutions. Optimizing well output
and economics are the key goals of these
production enhancement projects and service companies are actively participating
in achieving these goals.
This growing demand has pressed companies in the service sector to diversify their
skills and address a wider range of reservoir and production problems. It has also
Oilfield Review
Anadrill
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By-passed zone
QQQQQQ
QQQQQQ
Sidetracking
Section milling
Window opening
Curve drilling
Medium radius
Short radius
Completion
Sand control
Zone isolation
Flow control
Gravel pack
Oil
Water
Completion
Connectivity
Isolation
Access
Liner hanger
Lateral drilling
Geosteering
Drill-in fluids
Underbalance
Short-radius
sidetrack
Depleted
zone
Optimizing Recovery
nReentry systems. RAPID services cover the key elements of reentry and multilateral
drilling, from pulling old completions to installing the new one and from drilling fluids
to wireline logging.
short- or medium-radius sidetracks and
multilaterals, drilled conventionally or with
coiled tubing. This year, in the USA alone,
more than 1500 reentry sidetracks will be
drilled. By 1999, the number is expected
to increase by 25%.3
Revisiting Existing Wellbores
Reentering wells to gain additional production is not new. Since the mid-1950s, oil
companies have reentered old wells and
drilled sidetracks to bypass formation damage or wellbore mechanical problems, and
also to exploit new zones, saving the
expense of drilling entirely new wells.4
Recent expansion of the reentry drilling market, however, owes much to improvements
in drilling and completion technology.
Reentry drilling provides a means to
reduce horizontal well costs. In addition to
boosting well productivity, reentry drilling
can also tap bypassed reserves (top right).
Multiple lateral sidetracks can fan out from
an existing wellbore for enhanced access
to reservoirs (middle right). And smaller
isolated pockets of oil and gas can be
tapped by extended-reach wells or multilaterals (bottom right). Typically, a horizontal well will triple or quadruple
productivity over a vertical well, and in
some cases, much larger productivity
improvementsup to 17-fold, or more
Autumn 1996
Lateral
sidetracks
Subsea
Extended reach
multilaterals
Multilaterals
Well Path
Drainage
Volume
Characterization
Slanted well
Permeability (k), md
Thick and
homogeneous,
no gas cap or
aquifer
Shale
Vertical, k v
Poor kv
Horizontal well
Horizontal, k h
Good kv
Oil
kv kh 0.1
Shale
Thick and
homogeneous,
with gas cap
and/or aquifer
Shale
Gas
Oil
Water
Not recommended:
risk of premature gas
or water production
Closely spaced
parallel wells preferred
Layered
kv kh 0.1
preferred over vertical
Laminated
Intersect as many
layers as possible
Not recommended:
risk of disappointing
productivity or
recovery due to low
vertical permeability
Naturally fractured
Naturally fractured
under waterflood
Closely spaced
short parallel
wells normal to
fractures
Structural compartment
Stratigraphic compartment
Elongated compartment
(plan view)
Attic compartments
Oilfield Review
Water Coning
Autumn 1996
A
14
2400
3
good in
upper
4000
4335
5
B
37
2400
3
average
C
19
2800
1.5
good
D
6
2800
5
poor
E
8
2500
4
poor
F
9
2400
6
poor
3000
3703
12
3800
4262
10
4000
4144
5
3689
3792
5
3615
3615
5
24
41
70
156
38
59
98
242
37
58
97
236
69
99
156
323
Horizontal/damaged vertical
Horizontal/vertical, skin = 1
Horizontal/fractured vertical
Payback (days)
6.5
3.8
2.2
20
Production ratios
4.3
7.3
1.5
3.0
1.0
2.0
33
18
6.4
4.1
2.5
13
6.4
4.1
2.4
13
4.7
3.3
2.1
10
nCandidate recognition in the Former Soviet Union (FSU). Field data (top) are used to
calculate production rates (middle) for various well scenarios, including vertical well
with original damaged skin, vertical well with skin reduced to unity, vertical well after
fracturing and reentry horizontal well with a skin of unity. Only horizontal wells with
predicted production improvement that was greater than two times the fractured vertical well case were considered as lateral reentry candidates. These wells would have
the fastest payout time.
different reservoir bodies as possible. The
latter case implies drilling in a direction
normal to the elongation, which, for a fluvial reservoir, means drilling perpendicular
to the downhill direction at the time of
deposition. Another approach might be
multibranch wells, designed to target channels identified with borehole seismic measurements in the horizontal trunk well.
Another application for horizontal drilling
deals with a special structural geometry
called attic compartments.
In these cases, steeply dipping beds may be in contact with an up-dip gas cap or down-dip
aquifer. One strategy is to drill a horizontal
well that passes through several beds, but
stays sufficiently below up-dip gas or above
down-dip water. Although this would seem
to be an efficient approach, it suffers distinct
disadvantages. Flow is commingled among
layers, and gas or water breakthrough will
interfere with production from other layers.
A better strategy might be to drill multiple
horizontal wells, each on strike and staying
in a given bed. The advantage of this
approach is that each well maintains an
optimal distance from gas-oil or oil-water
contacts, thus delaying multiphase produc-
Oilfield Review
7500
Two 300-ft
stacked laterals
6500
2400
ft
1200
ft
600 ft
300 ft
5500
4500
3500
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
9000
10000
nStacked laterals compared to slanted wellbores. A NODAL sensitivity analysis compares two stacked lateral
boreholes to various lengths of a single slanted wellbore path through two thick, clean sands in a Gulf of Mexico reservoir.
Autumn 1996
2 7/8
3 1/2
4 1/2
5 1/2
2.441
2.992
3.958
5.012
6.276
500
(installed in well)
400
300
200
0
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
10
When reentry drilling is the optimal solution, one of the first decisions is to choose
between conventional and coiled tubing
drilling (CTD). Through-tubing reentry and
underbalanced CTD is an economical solution for drilling and workover operations on
rigless platforms. Underbalanced drilling
minimizes formation damage and increases
drilling penetration rates.
The majority of older wells will be reentered by conventional drilling with longradiusgreater than 500-ft [152-m]or
medium-radius200- to 500-ft [61- to
153-m]sidetracks. However, there is a
major trend toward reentry drilling with
short-radius40- to 100-ft [12- to 30-m]
drilling. 10 Short-radius sidetracks require
articulated drilling systems, which are highly
effective in competent formations that can
be completed without liners or other completion hardware. Short-radius drilling techniques, whether by conventional means or
with coiled tubing, allow drillers to turn well
trajectories in a much shorter distance than
was previously possible. This allows kicking
off below well hardware, if required, or
drilling a curve and lateral section completely within a reservoir to avoid problems
with overlying formations.
Multilateral drilling, an increasingly popular drilling strategy in new wells, uses multiple horizontal sidetracks from a primary
trunk in a parent well. This technique can
make small fields economical and reduce
the number of wells needed to drain a reservoir. Fewer wellheads significantly reduce
the cost of subsea completions and tie-back
operations. The multilateral geometry can be
simple opposing laterals in the same horizontal formation for better penetration, or
stacked laterals to gain access, in multilayered reservoirs for example, to formations at
different depths. A multilateral pattern can
be used in the same horizon to drain larger
Oilfield Review
Autumn 1996
yy
yy
yy
y
yy
yy
yyyy
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yy@y
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Oilfield Review
Plan View
Vertical Profile
5000
0 ft
5100
5200
Lease
line
Top of sand
Actual wellbore profile
Bottom of sand
1000 ft
5400
-50
300
500
1000
1500
1750
Autumn 1996
1600 ft
500 ft
800 ft
Short-Radius Systems
Short-radius wells are drilled to avoid traversing problem formations that would otherwise require a liner to isolate, or because
wells must be kicked off below hardware,
such as an external casing shoe.16 In some
formations, the kickoff and lateral can be
kept entirely in the pay zone, avoiding
shale beds and reducing the risk of stuck
pipe (above).
13
Venezuela
Atlantic Ocean
Peninsula
de Guajira
Peninsula de
Paraguana
Cerrejon
Gulf of Venezuela
La Vela
de Coro
Guasare
El Mamon
Las Palmas/Tiguje
Monte Clar
A R G E N T I N A
Pacific Ocean
Bolivar fields
Alturitas
Boca
Escalante
San Lorenzo
Poco
Lake
Maracaibo
Rosario
Fishing head
Mud pulser
Battery module
Gamma-ray detector
Upper
articulation
Direction and
inclination systems
Stinger
Power section
Lower
articulation
Rotor/stator
Adjustable standoff
1.5 Fixed bend
Rotating near-bit stabilizer
14
Oilfield Review
Autumn 1996
Vertical Profile
10900
10920
10940
1
10960
2
3
10980
4
5
11000
11020
11040
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
2000
nAlturitas well profile. The drilling plan called for a short-radius lateral to the bottom of
the pay, then the lateral was allowed to angle upcutting through each sand layer
before turning back down, again cutting through each of the layers. Once the bottom
sand was reached, drilling stopped1933 ft [589 m] from the kickoff point. This lateral
produced a sevenfold improvement in production rate over the original vertical well.
VIPER Coiled Tubing Drilling System
B
Logging tool
Check
valves
Wet
connect
Pressure transducers,
and electronics
Electrical
disconnect
Telemetry
and power
Gamma-ray sensors
and electronics
C
Orienting tool
Motor, gear train
and bearing section
Motor/power
electronics
Steerable motor
Articulation
Nonmagnetic
power section
Surface-adjustable
bent housing
nCoiled tubing drilling system. The VIPER system consists of a wireline-powered BHA
that includes an instrument package for directional control as well as gamma ray,
temperature and pressure measurements, a PowerPak downhole motor, an orienting
tool that can rotate continuously and a circulating sub. Data and downhole commands
are transmitted via a cable that is pumped down inside the coiled tubing.
15
Anadrill
Shallow or
depleted reservoirs
Layered
reservoirs
Fractured
reservoirs
nMultilateral drilling for improving productivity. In depleted zones, a network of laterals increases the length of wellbore in contact with the reservoir (top lateral), which
also reduces adverse pressure drawdown effects. Several isolated layers can also be
tapped from the same wellbore (middle laterals). In a fractured reservoir, dual laterals
intersect twice as many fractures (bottom laterals).
5700
KOP
10/100 ft build
6100
Top of
Austin Chalk
Bentonite
Eagleford
6500
False Buda
Buda
Georgetown
6900
7300
0
800
1600
2400
3200
4000
4800
nTypical Austin Chalk quadrilateral openhole (barefoot) completion drilled for Union
Pacific Resources.
16
Oilfield Review
Open Hole
Cemented Liner
Packers, liners,
completion fluids
from Dowell
Tubing-conveyed
perforating from
Wireline & Testing
17