Konferensartikel

Advances in drilling technology have made long, horizontal wells the preferred method to extract oil from reservoirs in the Norwegian Sector. Horizontal wells give increased oil contact, enabling production from reservoirs with shallow, high viscosity oil columns. Under these conditions, early water or gas breakthrough is a major challenge. To postpone breakthrough, inflow control devices (ICD) are installed to even out the drawdown. A new technology, Autonomous Inflow Control Valve (AICV©) also has the ability to autonomously close each individual inflow zone in the event of gas or water breakthrough. The objective of this paper was to study and compare these inflow control technologies by conducting simulations in OLGA/Rocx. A heterogeneous fractured sandstone heavy oil reservoir was modelled. The results shows that during 2000 days of production, the AICV well produces 2950 m3 more oil and 158300 m3 less water than the ICD well. This indicates that AICV has the potential to reduce the water production significantly, and thereby increase the oil recovery.

Inflow control, ICD, AICV, heterogeneous oil reservoir, oil production, breakthrough, multiphase flow, OLGA, Rocx