By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Aug. 5 – Saudi Aramco said its Southern Area Production Engineering and Production Services Departments prepared more than 400 wells for completion before supergiant Khurais oil field came on stream in June (OGJ, July 20, 2009, p. 34).
The units managed 232 oil-production, 119 water-injection, and 58 observation wells, as well as stimulation work and the installation and testing of electrical submersible pumps.
The stimulation work covered 118 power-water injectors and 14 oil producers. It included the pumping of 12 million gal of fluid.
Aramco said the use of rigless coiled-tubing technology tripled injection rates in comparison with conventional methods using drill pipe in a rig.
At Khurais, which added 1.2 million b/d to Saudi production capacity, the company made its first use of distributed temperature sensors combined with multilateral tools in a number of reservoir access wells.
Khurais development made heavy use of permanent downhole monitoring sensors, remote-control chokes, and multiphase flowmeters. Data flow through a remote terminal unit at wellsites to field control rooms and eventually to ’Udhailiyah and Abqaiq for validation and interpretation.
