Summary
The development of Haradh-III in the southernmost region of Ghawar
represents a major shift in paradigm in terms of the combination of the
technologies. The field development combines four main technology features,
which include maximum-reservoir-contact (MRC) wells, smart completions,
extensive use of real-time geosteering, and iField initiatives.
This paper describes the motivation, implementation, and post-production
evaluation of this unique field development. In the case of Haradh-III, field
development with smart MRC wells delays water encroachment, improves
flood-front conformance and recovery, and lowers water production and long-term
development and operating costs. Bottomwater encroachment into the wellbore is
mitigated as downhole internal control valves (ICVs), as part of the smart
completion, are adjusted. This, in turn, lengthens the life of the well,
allowing sweep and recovery to take place in the reservoir below the horizontal
wellbores with the most effective sweep process: the replacement mechanism by
gravity. The objectives of the development are accomplished by use of a reduced
number of wells that minimize the accompanying infrastructure, which lowers the
capital expenditure while reducing the operating cost by maintaining, on a
long-term basis, a low-water-producing system, all in real time and within the
iField environment.
Introduction
Production at the Haradh-III development started in February 2006. The
project included a combination of MRC wells, smart completions, geosteering,
and the iField concept, which provides real-time access to downhole
information. The efficient integration, along with an understanding of the
fluid-flow mechanisms in the reservoir, was the key to the success of this
project.
Haradh field is located at the southernmost portion of the Ghawar complex
and covers an area that is 75 km long and is 26 km at its widest section (Fig.
1). The field consists of three subsegments of approximately equivalent
reserves, with an aggregate oil initially in place on the order of tens of
billions of bbl. Initial production at Haradh-I started in May 1996, followed
by Haradh-II and Haradh-III in April 2003 and February 2006, respectively. The
field developments, occurring over a span of a decade, offer a unique
opportunity to gauge the impact of technologies. Haradh-I was developed by use
of vertical wells exclusively, whereas horizontal completions provided the
primary configuration for producers/injectors in Haradh-II. Haradh-III, the
focus of this paper, was developed by relying mainly on smart MRC completions
(Fig. 2) within an iField framework. The total Haradh production capacity is
900,000 B/D, with equal contributions from the three respective subsegments I,
II, and III. Key statistics for Haradh-III are shown in Table 1 (Saleri et al.
2006).
Geological Setting
Geologically, the Arab-D carbonate reservoir is divided into several zones:
Zone-1, at the top, is a thin layer separated from the main producing zones by
an impermeable nonporous layer of anhydrite. Zone-2A, below Zone-1, is mostly
skeletal oolitic limestone with scattered vugs and local superpermeability
super-k zones. Below Zone-2A is Zone-2B, which commonly includes dolomite and
cladocoropsis-based super-k intervals (Valle et al. 1993) (Fig. 3). Below
Zone-2B are Zone-3A and Zone-3B, which have significantly lower reservoir
quality.
Major and minor faults identified from 3D-seismic data and associated
fracture swarms (corridors) have been observed in various degrees throughout
the Arab-D reservoir in adjacent regions (Pham et al. 2002). In addition,
diffuse fractures are observed to be pervasive in cores (Fig. 4).
© 2008. Society of Petroleum Engineers
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History
- Original manuscript received:
10 December 2006
- Meeting paper published:
11 March 2007
- Revised manuscript received:
24 March 2008
- Manuscript approved:
4 April 2008
- Version of record:
15 November 2008
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