GLOBAL EFFORT TO STUDY, COMBAT KUWAIT FIRES CONTINUES TO EXPAND

A worldwide effort to study and combat the massive oil field fires in Kuwait continues to expand. Among recent developments: Satellite images released by Earth Observation Satellite Co. (Eosat), Lanham, Md., clearly show the orchestrated destruction of Kuwaiti oil fields by Iraqi forces. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was using the U.S. Landsat remote sensing satellite data to map the burning wells and expected to determine which ones will snuff themselves naturally.

May 6, 1991

5 min read

A worldwide effort to study and combat the massive oil field fires in Kuwait continues to expand. Among recent developments:

Satellite images released by Earth Observation Satellite Co. (Eosat), Lanham, Md., clearly show the orchestrated destruction of Kuwaiti oil fields by Iraqi forces. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was using the U.S. Landsat remote sensing satellite data to map the burning wells and expected to determine which ones will snuff themselves naturally.
A study prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy predicts the oil well fires in Kuwait will damage reservoirs but contends, "There is little that can be done to either predict it quantitatively or control it."
The Kuwaiti firefighting and reconstruction effort should be boosted by the reopening of the container terminal at the Shuaiba port. Vessels started to use Shuaiba port in late March, but capacity was limited and shipping restricted to vessels chartered by the government. Industry sources say the volume of shipping should increase dramatically and allow a big jump in the amount of equipment entering Kuwait.
Three U.K. construction companies have formed a group, British Kuwait Fire Group, to offer Kuwait Oil Co. a turnkey package of firefighting and field rehabilitation. KOC is considering a proposal from a combine of AMEC, Taylor Woodrow, and Geo. Wimpey to bring together organizations with the capability to dowse fires with other companies that could rehabilitate devastated oil fields.
A Dowell Schlumberger technician and a consultant to the company were among six people killed in a multiple car crash amid burning wells and lakes of crude in Burgan field. The technician was Anwar Hussein, 33, from India. The consultant was not named. Among others killed were an editor and a photographer from the Financial Times newspaper, London.

SATELLITE VIEW

Eosat's Landsat imagery of Kuwait City and regions to the south, acquired from an altitude of about 450 miles last Jan. 6 during the allied coalition's Operation Desert Shield, showed no burning wells.

Then on Feb. 15, barely shy of 1 month into the allied forces' air attack in Operation Desert Storm and 8 days before the ground war began, imagery showed many wells ablaze. And on Mar. 3, 4 days after the end of the allies' 100 hr ground attack, about 600 blazing wells were sending black clouds of smoke into the air, obscuring a large stretch of Kuwait's Persian Gulf coastline.

Before the fighting ended in Kuwait and Iraq, environmental specialists at the Corps of Engineers' Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (Crrel), Hanover, N.H., were analyzing Landsat images to assess the damage wrought in Kuwait oil fields by fleeing Iraqi troops.

Researchers relied on Landsat imagery to count and map burning wells to prepare for the cleanup that would follow. The U.S. government is supplying the data to groups involved in firefighting efforts.

Crrel researchers have started a project to monitor the intensity, or apparent temperature, of individual well fires by using data from Landsat's thermal infrared detectors.

Reports from the field show some wells are burning themselves out. Crrel personnel expect Landsat's thermal sensor to detect falling temperatures at those wells. And that information could assist the well control campaign by directing crews to concentrate kill efforts on wells whose fire shows no sign of dying naturally.

DOE STUDY

The Sandia National Laboratories report for DOE said the uncontrolled fires will result in lost reserves, lost reservoir drive mechanism, and lost well productivity from near wellbore formation damage.

"The severity of the damage will depend on the number of blowouts in a given reservoir, the duration of uncontrolled production, the properties of the reservoir, and the properties of the crude oil."

The study said a drop in reservoir pressure will lower production.

"When the pressure drops below the bubble point of the crude oil, gas comes out of solution in the reservoir. At the very high rates of production considered, the free gas will be produced, further reducing the pressure. Eventually, these wells will stop producing, as when all the air is let out of a tire. Once this occurs, efforts to raise reservoir pressure through gas or water injection are possible, but are very expensive.

"In the large Burgan oil field, a very strong water aquifer replaces 95% of the oil that is produced, thereby maintaining the average reservoir pressure. In about 20% of the reservoirs, however, only a small amount of water, if any, comes in from the aquifer as oil is produced, so reservoir pressure declines. These depletion type reservoirs will be very sensitive to uncontrolled production, but quantitative estimates of depletion reservoir pressure drawdown depend on reservoir size, pressure, and productivity."

The study noted lost well productivity is difficult to quantify even when good data are available, and only estimates can be made in the Kuwaiti case.

It said uncontrolled flow can result in asphaltene and paraffin deposits on rock, casing, and tubing near the wellbore, thus reducing permeability. That effect would vary from well to well.

Another source of permeability damage--for deep, high pressure holes--is rock matrix collapse and fracture closure as the pressure drops near the wellbore. It said while that damage would be irreversible, the wells could still be produced and/or new wells could be drilled nearby.

Sandia said reservoirs with a good water drive, such as Burgan, may undergo coning of water from the aquifer and gas from the gas cap. "An extended shut-in period is required to recover from the coning as gravity segregates the fluids again."

And it said tubing in some of the wells could collapse due to the large pressure drops expected or could be weakened by sand particles in the fluid stream flowing near the speed of sound.

"For the 2 months to more than a year that some wells will flow uncontrolled under these conditions, permanent loss of the tubulars in the well will likely occur."