Case Study

Avoiding Interventions in a Marginal Field

Background and Subsurface Setting
The South Furious field is located offshore Sabah, Malaysia, and is operated by Shell as a joint venture with Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd. The development of the field was fasttracked, with planned first oil production in fourth quarter, 2001, from an unmanned minimal facility platform. The field features one of the worlds first remotely-controlled and integrated SmartWell intelligent field applications. The subsurface setting is a stratigraphically rapped turbidite reservoir with very poorly sorted sands. Permeability ranges from 10 to 2000 md, with an average of 250 md. The average porosity is 25%.

Customer Value
Well tests were performed on each individual zone with the valves opened and closed numerous times. The SmartWell intelligent completion system exceeded client expectations. It is estimated that wells SF30-3 and SF30-5 are both producing approximately 4000 BOPD. It is predicted that SmartWell technology deployed in South Furious Field will improve field life cycle value by 30%. The SmartWell technology deployed in South Furious has demonstrated the capability of accelerating production, reducing capital expenditure, reducing operating costs and maximizing hydrocarbon recovery.

Challenge
The South Furious field is a limited oilfield with marginal economics. To mitigate the risk of reservoir performance uncertainty, innovative completion technology and digital solutions were required to allow data acquisition from and remote production management of an unmanned platform.

SmartWell Solution
SmartWell technology was deployed to eliminate costprohibitive well interventions and to allow real-time downhole reservoir data acquisition. The data acquired by the SmartWell system is crucial for economically-viable production from this complex reservoir. Downhole electrical submersible pumps (ESPs) are integrated with the SmartWell intelligent completion system to enable optimization of the artificial lift.

Details
Client
Date Deployed Country Field/Well TVD(m) MD(m) Dev (deg) Temp (deg C) Well Type Structure System Equipment Used No of Zones ICV Size

Shell Sabah PC
November/December 2001 East Malaysia South Furious/SF-30-3 SF-30-5 660 875 54 66 Oil Producer Land Digital Hydraulics CC-ICVs, LV, PDG 3 3 x 3.5

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