Miskimins

It is with great pleasure that I greet you as the new Executive Editor of the SPE Production & Operations journal. I have a difficult act to follow in Norm Warpinski, the outgoing editor. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank him for his service to SPE and the SPE Prod & Oper  journal and to add a personal note of thanks for his support and assistance with my transition into this position. For those of you who don’t know Norm personally, he is very generous with his time and knowledge, and for that, I am very thankful. I would also like to thank Yannis Yortsos, the SPE Editor-In-Chief, for the opportunity to serve SPE in this capacity.

As any Executive Editor of the SPE journals will tell you, we are only as effective as the people that do the real work--the Associate Editors. I would like to recognize the people that serve SPE Prod & Oper  in this capacity including (alphabetically) John Bagzis, Harold Brannon, Ian Collins, Ali Ghalambor, Joyce Holtzclaw, Shauna Noonan, Liang-Biao Ouyang, Joseph Smith, and Dean Wehunt. Ali Ghalambor and Dean Wehunt are stepping down from their AE roles, and I would like to thank them for their service to SPE Prod & Oper--they will be missed. Finally, I’d like to express my gratitude to all the Technical Editors that serve SPE Prod & Oper. They are too numerous to name, but SPE Prod & Oper  would not function without them. If you have an interest in becoming a Technical Editor, please consider attending one of the workshops that are held every year in conjunction with the annual meeting.

In this issue of SPE Prod & Oper, we are pleased to provide you with 25 excellent papers that span a variety of topics. This is a large issue in order to help alleviate some of the backlog of papers that currently exists. In the following paragraphs, I have grouped them together as much as possible by topic. In the journal itself, you will find the papers placed in numerical to facilitate locating them quickly.

A comparison of actual to simulated production in a deepwater gas-lift system is presented in A Systematic Investigation of Girassol Deepwater-Field Operational Data to Increase Confidence in Multiphase Simulation. Staying with the deepwater theme, the paper New Trend in Oilfield Flow-Assurance Management: A Review of Thermal Insulating Fluids discusses 75 cases of thermal fluids in riser and packer applications.

In this edition, we have several stimulation papers. Two that focus on diversion techniques include CT Study of Liquid Diversion With Foam, which examines experimental liquid injection after foam, and Application of Cationic Surfactant-Based Fluids for Acid Diversion, which presents field trials of a cationic surfactant. The use of viscoelastic fluids in the area of stimulation are addressed in three papers, including A Novel Stimulation Technique for Horizontal Openhole Wells in Carbonate Reservoirs--A Case Study in Kuwait, in which the authors present a matrix acidizing application; Fluid-Loss Control Improves Performance of Viscoelastic Surfactant Fluids, which examines new fluid-loss additives for a wide range of temperatures and permeabilities; and Quantitative Analysis of Reaction-Rate Retardation in Surfactant-Based Acids, which evaluates the dissolution rate of calcite in experimental settings.

Simulation of fracture-face damage and associated skin factors are presented in Fracture-Face-Skin Evolution During Cleanup, while Application of Diluted Consolidation Systems To Improve Effectiveness of Proppant Flowback Remediation--Laboratory and Field Results presents the results of a new combination method to minimize proppant flowback. Various hydraulic-fracture multidisciplinary integration projects from around the world are examined in three papers, including Hydraulic-Fracture-Model Sensitivity Analyses of a Massively Stacked, Lenticular, Tight Gas Reservoir from the United States, Data Mining Identifies Production Drivers in a Complex High-Temperature Gas Reservoir from Australia, and Hydraulic Fracturing With Heated Fluids Brings Success in High-Pour-Point Waxy-Oil Reservoir in India from India.

From a hydraulic-fracture-monitoring standpoint, an improved analysis technique using stacked microseismic signals is presented in Stacking Seismograms To Improve Microseismic Images. Bypassed pay is identified by combining hydraulic fracture and reservoir simulation in Stimulation of Bypassed Pay Zones in Existing Wellbores, while design procedures using various proppant specific gravities are presented in Inverted-Convection Proppant Transport for Effective Conformance Fracturing.

The stimulation papers are rounded out by Real-Time Fluid Distribution Determination in Matrix Treatments Using DTS discussing the use of distributed temperature sensing to monitor real-time fluid distribution, and the Feasibility Study of Ultrasound for Oil Well Stimulation on the Basis of Consideration of Wave Properties, which presents a theoretical basis for stimulation using ultrasound and wave phenomena.

Simulation of the downhole gauge placement and the sensitivity of various placement components are the subjects of Placement of Permanent Downhole-Pressure Sensors in Reservoir Surveillance. A new monitoring and alarming system for gas-lift systems is the subject of Production Optimization by Real-Time Modeling and Alarming: The Sendji Field Case.

Two-phase flow is the main topic of A Simple Mechanistic Model for Void-Fraction and Pressure-Gradient Prediction in Vertical and Inclined Gas/Liquid Flow, which presents a new mechanistic model for flow in vertical and inclined pipes. Simulation of slug flow is the subject of A Study of Normal Slug Flow in an Offshore Production Facility with a Large-Diameter Flowline. Analytical and line-source model comparisons for undulating wells are presented in Predicting Undulating-Well Performance.

Rounding out our suite of papers are those concerned with water issues. The Effect of Residual Oil on Deep-Bed Filtration of Particles in Injection Water presents experimental results of formation damage from the injection of hematite solutions. In the Practical Use of New Microbiology Tools in Oil Production, the authors discuss microbial population shifts and their relationship to souring of systems. Finally, Technology for Confecting Polymer Solution With Desalinated Produced Water provides the results of an experimental desalination unit in a polymer waterflood system.

As you can see, we have an outstanding lineup of papers that should contain something for everyone. I hope you enjoy this issue of SPE Prod & Oper.