A Case Study of Natural Flow and Tubing String Design for a Water Drive Reservoir

Abstract

The design of natural flow and artificial lift tubing strings for the whole life of a water drive reservoir was carried out using data based on synthetic reservoir performance based on a material balance. The effects of reservoir properties on the life of the well was also investigated. Constraints such as maximum production, maximum drawdown, limitations on surface facilities capacities, as well as available gas lift was imposed. The production conditions for natural flow, continuous gas lift, and an ESP for later phases of the reservoir was designed and simulated along time by imposing either a constant flow rate or a constant bottom hole flowing pressure. A forecast of the production of oil and gas as well as the time where tubing strings should be replaced as a function of both the cumulative production and time was presented. The work was concluded by reservoir pressure was maintained much longer in comparison to other drive mechanism when there is an active water drive preferably edge water drive reservoirs which maintains a steady-flow condition for a long time before water breakthrough into the well. Finally the following areas were identified for improvement in the development of the work one is that the assumptions in this work is the use of synthetic reservoir performance data based on material balance a possible extension is by incorporating more practical condition by including more wells and the performance with time better analyzed and further oil production economic analysis should be inclusive in the work so that the optimum production pattern of the reservoir could be determined.