Water Shut-Off Technology in North Kuwait
More than 50%
Excessive water production is one of the main well-known problems that would face any oil operator in the world.
Although this problem is typical in older wells, it can also occur in new developed wells as well. It causes numerous economic problems for oil production companies. Excessive water effects the performance of the production wells and shortens their lifespan. The presence of the water in the wellbore increase the weight of the fluid column which leads to an increase in the lifting requirements. That increases the operating cost and leads to a lower the drawdown.
Bright Gulf introduced a new innovative Microgel solution to prevent the excessive water production in North Kuwait oil field. These North Kuwait Heavy oil wells by successfully injecting innovative Microgels into the formation surrounding the wellbore at a depth of several meters from wellbore.
The product adsorbs on the surface of the rock, resulting in a selective reduction of the relative permeability to water, with low impact on the relative permeability to oil or to gas. When water encroachment occurs through the highest permeability intervals surrounding the wellbore, preferential invasion by the polymer/Microgel solution induces a skin on this zone, while the other ones are almost unaffected by the shallow invasion of the same RPM products. The result is a new repartition of flows more favorable to oil or gas production.
Bright Gulf performed WSO treatments for North Kuwait Heavy Oil wells. The post-treatment data showed excellent results and there is a good
opportunity to extend treatment campaign to another wells. After the successful injection of Microgel solution, the reduction of excessive water production was observed by around 50% while improving the oil production rate for North Kuwait Heavy Oil wells.