Best Practices

in Offshore Heavy Oil Development

Cesaltino Matias Pedro

Petroleum Engineer

Acknowledgment
Dr. William John Lee
Dr. Jerome. J. Schubert
Dr. Ben D. Welch

18th February 2009, Angola SPE Section - Luanda 1

Background – Motivation

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Background – Motivation

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Background – Motivation
• Abundant heavy oil resources discovered.
• Only +/- 8% of production is from heavy
oil.
• Over 90% of heavy oil production is from
onshore heavy oil fields.
• Increasing demand of fossil fuel leading
to oil price increases.
• Continuous technological advancements.
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Background – Challenge
• Offshore Environment.
ƒ Remote locations
ƒ Challenging water depths
ƒ Reduce space

• Fluid properties.
ƒ High viscosity
ƒ High sulfur content
ƒ High TAN number

• Reservoir properties.
ƒ Low reservoir pressure
ƒ Low reservoir temperature
ƒ Unconsolidated formation
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Background – Offshore
Environment
• Complex and expensive producing and
processing facilities.
• Challenging wells geometry.
• Flow assurance problems.
ƒ Low temperature of flow lines
ƒ Oil/water emulsions
ƒ Solids production
• Limited deck space.
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Background – Fluid Properties
• Low fluid mobility.
ƒ Challenging gas and/or waterflood
• Poor well productivity.
• Low product price.
• Reduced market.
• Flow assurance problems.
ƒ Temperature drop in wellbore
ƒ Oil/water emulsions

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 Background – Reservoir
Properties
• Challenging wells to drill.
ƒ Well control
ƒ Extended reach
ƒ Horizontal and/or multilateral
• Challenging well completion.
ƒ Poor lifting mechanism
ƒ Sand production
• Low recovery.
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 Best Practices
• Best practices are those practices that members of the industry
agree add significant value to projects and have been in use by the
Project Management teams;
(they may have not been validated through IPA’s statistical methods).

• The recognition and implementation of existing best practices in

offshore heavy oil developments improves the probability of a
successful development.

• Offshore heavy oil developments have been around for over 50

years and past experiences showed that some can be economically
developed, when we are able to:
ƒ Reduce the project implementation cost,
ƒ Improve well productivity
ƒ Market opportunities (location and/or high prices).

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Best Practices – 3D Seismic
• Integrate 3D Seismic interpretation with
local geological understanding

ƒ Generate correlations between seismic

characteristics and reservoir properties.
ƒ Critical for reservoir characterization
ƒ Main source of data for reservoir simulation

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Best Practices – Extended Well
Test
• Perform extended well test to mitigate
the uncertainty and risk to develop the
field and investigate future producing
system

ƒ Mitigate risk and reduce uncertainty

ƒ Determine reservoir and fluid properties
ƒ Understand producing system
ƒ Basis of design for the development plan
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Best Practices – Heavy Oil
Characterization
• Capture oil samples in every well during
appraisal phase, measure PVT phase
behavior at reservoir and lower
temperature conditions, and pay special
attention to viscosity determination

ƒ Determine fluid properties

ƒ Understand viscosity temperature
relationship
ƒ Production and processing system design
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 Best Practices – Heavy Oil
Characterization
• Viscosity: In a light oil reservoir, one sample may adequately
define a reservoir. In a biodegraded reservoir, this is not the case.
20% variation on a single oil sample has been recorded using
current viscosity techniques

• Heavy oil reservoirs are generally created by biodegradation/water

washing of light oil. Since this process is dependent upon fluid
flow within the reservoir, the degree of contact and the amount of
biodegradation within a reservoir is not uniform, thus, differences
in API gravity, viscosity, and other oil properties can be created.

• Sometimes there are general trends in oil property changes within

a reservoir. However, the non-uniform water contact generally
causes significant additional heterogeneities which overlay any
general trend which may exist, and make localized predictions
difficult.

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Best Practices – Extended Reach
Horizontal and/or Multilateral well
• Drill extended reach horizontal and/or
multilateral wells

ƒ Increase well productivity

ƒ Optimizing the number of barrels produced
by drilling-dollars spent
ƒ Optimized reduced number of wellbores
ƒ Manage pressure drop

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Best Practices – Electric
Submersible Pump
• Install electric submersible pumps as the
lifting system in the well completion

ƒ Enable wells to flow

ƒ Manage start up requirements
ƒ Lift high quantities of fluids (oil and water)
ƒ Allow some production of solids

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Best Practices – Upgrade Heavy
Oil
• Mix light oil to the heavy oil by injecting
downhole or in the processing facilities

ƒ Modify heavy oil viscosity

ƒ Improve heavy oil properties
ƒ Increase product price
ƒ Increase well productivity

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Best Practices – Water Injection
• Water injection is the most successful
secondary (cold) recovery method

ƒ Improve sweep efficiency

ƒ Provide pressure support
ƒ Improve reserves recovery

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 Case History – Captain
• Located offshore United Kingdom estimated to contain
956 million barrels of 19o API oil, viscosity 88 cp

Key Challenges
ƒ Water Management
ƒ Sand management
ƒ Personnel on Board (POB)
ƒ Drilling costs
ƒ Slot constrained
ƒ Rig availability for workovers

Best Practices
ƒ Performed extended well test
ƒ Horizontal wells
ƒ Water injection
ƒ Creative local solution – Use of polymer to
augment waterflood results

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 Case History – Grane
• Located offshore Norway, 405 ft water depth, reservoir
pressure of 2,466 psi, estimated to contain 755 million
barrels of 19o API oil

Key Challenges
ƒ Thin reservoir sands
ƒ Distance to producing facilities
ƒ Regional weather
ƒ Drilling costs

Best Practices
ƒ Performed extended well test
ƒ Horizontal wells
ƒ Detailed study of reservoir fluids
ƒ Water and Gas injection
ƒ Creative local solution – Oil stored in caverns

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 Case History – Jubarte
• Located offshore Brazil, over 3,500 ft water depth, reservoir
pressure of 2,600 psi, estimated to contain 600 million barrels of 17o
API oil (dead oil viscosity 3,000 cp)

Key Challenges
ƒ Large bottom aquifer
ƒ Sand management
ƒ Tarmat layer
ƒ Drilling costs and smaller pools of reserves
ƒ High oil viscosity

Best Practices
ƒ Performed extended well test
ƒ Horizontal wells
ƒ 3D seismic interpretation
ƒ 3D geological and simulation model
ƒ Phased development
ƒ Creative local solution – Value of Information
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What works
• CO2 gas injection
• Gas lift
• Progressive Cavity Pump
• Viscosity modification by addition of heat
• High well density
• Regular pigging of production lines
• Polymer flood
• Logging while drilling
• Open hole wells
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Opportunities
• Microbial application to upgrade oil downhole
• Downhole catalytic upgrade
• 4D seismic cost reduction
• Increase capacity to handle fluids during
extended well test
• Open hole fracpack completion
• Increase ESP tolerance to sand production
• Downhole fluids separation
• Thermal bundled flowlines and well completions
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 Acronyms
• SAGD – Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage
• CSS – Cyclic Steam Stimulation & Steamflood
• HOSGD – Heavy Oil Solution Gas Drive
• Vapex – Vapor Assisted Petroleum Extraction
• MEOR – Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery
• SARA – Saturated Aromatic Resins & Aspalthenes
• CHOPS – Cold Heavy Oil Production with Sand
• THAI – Toe to Heel Air Injection

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Conclusions
1. Successful development plans of heavy oil fields are
site specific, depending upon oil properties, possibility
to blend with light oil, price scenario, and availability
of refinery and market for the product.
2. Completing producing wells with electric submersible
pumps is the most efficient lifting method for offshore
heavy oil developments.
3. Interpretation and integration of 3D Seismic with local
geology understanding is the most reliable source of
data for reservoir and property characterization.

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Conclusions
4. During the appraisal phase of a heavy oil offshore
development, extended well test is crucial to mitigate
risk and reduce uncertainties.
5. Fluid identification and characterization is essential to
design extended well tests and producing and
processing facilities.
6. Drilling extended reach horizontal wells is the
preferred alternative to improve well deliverability for
offshore heavy oil developments.
7. To date Waterflood is recognized by the industry as
the most successful enhanced heavy oil recovery
method. 25