Title: An efficient design for a downhole water loop to control water production from oil wells

Authors: Mohammadsajjad Zeynolabedini; Mehdi Assareh

Addresses: School of Chemical, Petroleum and Gas Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran 16846-13114, Iran ' School of Chemical, Petroleum and Gas Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran 16846-13114, Iran

Abstract: This work presents an effective design of downhole water loop (DWL) based on a case study from literature. At the beginning, a comparative study of conventional production and DWL is performed to show the relative importance of DWL based on decrease in watercut and increase in oil production rate. The net present value (NPV) of the DWL technique is 4.52E+07 [$], while the NPV of conventional production is 3.26E+07 [$]. Prior to optimisation, DWL sensitivity to the opening lengths, distance between upper and lower openings in water zone (water drainage-injection distance or D/I spacing) and water drainage rate are analysed. Two different optimisation procedures, sequential and simultaneous, are applied to find an optimised design. The NPVs are improved in this way considerably, from 4.52E+07 [$] to 7.07E+08 [$] in simultaneous mode and 6.99E+08 [$] in sequential mode. Finally, anisotropy effects are analysed for its impact on NPV decreasing. [Received: March 18, 2020; Accepted: September 21, 2020]

Keywords: production operation; downhole water loop; DWL; oil wells; stochastic optimisation; water production control.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOGCT.2021.118652

International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology, 2021 Vol.28 No.3, pp.333 - 353

Received: 18 Mar 2020
Accepted: 21 Sep 2020
Published online: 30 Oct 2021 *

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