Quantifying Incremental Oil Production and Economics of using Intelligent Completion as a Tool for Reservoir Management

Abstract

Huge amount of hydrocarbon in place is left unrecovered. Integrated reservoir management, in addition to the use of new technologies improves hydrocarbon recovery. Intelligent completion is one of the technologies which enhance reservoir management thereby improving the hydrocarbon recovery. This work presents a review of intelligent completion technology, guidelines to evaluate the decision whether or not to implement intelligent completion and evaluates field cases of intelligent completion installation. The case studies were derived from four fields where intelligent completions have been implemented. Comparison of intelligent completion with non-intelligent completion was based on ease of data acquisition for reservoir management, incremental oil production and profitability criteria. The yard sticks used for economic analysis include the net present value, discounted payout period, profitability index and growth rate of return. The results from the study show that reliable intelligent completion improves reservoir management by enabling data acquisition and well monitoring. Employing intelligent well completions in reservoir management can lead to 21% to 38% increase in oil recovery and 17% to 41% increase in NPV compared to non-intelligent completion. It must be pointed out that intelligent system failure may render intelligent completion projects economically unattractive. The results of this study can be used to evaluate the feasibility of executing an intelligent completion project; especially in fields were intelligent completion is yet to be implemented as a tool for reservoir management.