Research Article
Application of production data‑driven diagnostics workflow for water
shut‑off candidate selection in tight carbonate field
Seyedeh Hosna Talebian1 · Ali Beglari1
Received: 13 August 2019 / Accepted: 13 November 2019 / Published online: 28 November 2019
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Abstract
The newly developed tight carbonates impose many challenges during the early production stage due to the reservoir
rock and fluid heterogeneities which has limited the utilization of simulation model as the main way of data integration
and performance prediction. Therefore, the surveillance data-driven analytics coupled with petrophysical and stress state
properties become of interest to reduce uncertainties involved in selecting reliable improved oil recovery candidates in
these reservoirs. This paper presents a workflow based on production data for water shut-off (WSO) candidate selection.
The WSO candidates were recognized based on heterogeneity index, decline curve analysis, water oil ratio and the effect
of excess water production on the well ultimate recovery. The mechanism and source of produced water was diagnosed
based on Chan plot and Stiff diagram through the presented screening.
Keywords Production data diagnostics · Carbonate reservoir · Heterogeneity index · Water shut-off
1 Introduction The main types of water problems in oil field, the water
shut-off methods in wellbore or reservoir and a produc-
As a result of the reduction trend in exploration of new tion data driven screening algorithm to select water shut-
major carbonate fields and a decline in production of con- off candidate are discussed in this paper. The proposed
ventional reserves categorized as easy oil, development of candidate selection workflow has been applied in a deep
deep tight carbonates with more complexities in reservoir tight carbonate reservoir that is facing unwanted water
rock and fluid behavior have become of interest for explo- production issue in the early stage of field development.
ration and development companies in recent years [14]. The workflow has been applied in oil field manager (OFM)
The newly developed tight carbonate fields impose many platform for the purpose of production data integration.
challenges during the early production stage due to the
reservoir heterogeneities, fluid behavior complexities and 1.1 Nature of water problems
the asphaltene deposition-induced problems that make
the sub-surface understanding and availability of data Figure 1 is a schematic overview of the 10 basic water
for further routine analysis limited [2]. The use of simula- problem types from easy to solve to the most difficult to
tion models as the main way of integration is also limited. solve [7]. The origin of the water production needs to be
Therefore, surveillance data-driven diagnostics integrated defined before any decision for downhole water control
with petrophysical data and field observations become process [3].
of interest to reduce uncertainties and risks involved in In newly developed reservoirs where water oil contact
selecting reliable improved oil recovery (IOR) candidates. (WOC) is not expected to be observed by production wells,
* Seyedeh Hosna Talebian, [email protected] | 1Department of Petroleum Engineering, Sarvak Azar Engineering and Development
(SAED), Tehran, Iran.
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Fig. 1 Schematic representation of the main water-type problems in producer wells [3]
the excess water production can be due to a combination Handling of water on the surface is costly and poses
of geology and stress conditions that lead to formation of potential negative effects on the environment due to dis-
a localized movable water above the transition zone that is charge to sea or reinjection. The potential negative effect
not actually connected to the actual free-water table. This is strongly dependent on the differential in any parameter
type of water traps, also known as perched-water zones, is between the produced water and the receiving environ-
formed when saturated conditions above a low permeabil- ment, whether that environment is an open surface (in
ity layer force water to move vertically through this layer. case of discharge) or an underground formation (in case
When moving water encounters resistance due to low per- of reinjection). The generally preferred hierarchy for envi-
meability, the pressure builds up creating a perched-water ronmental management is (1) reduce, (2) re-use/recycle
head to filtrate the water through the tight layer [8]. and (3) disposal [6]. Although produced water injection
to disposal zones or reinjection into the source oil zone is
1.2 Water shut‑off methods regarded as the practicable environmental option, com-
patibility issues, impaired injectivity, reservoir fracture and
Produced water is defined as water co-produced with induced sustaining bacterial activity are the vital issues for
crude oil during production operations and consists of many projects [12]. Therefore, shutting off water produc-
formation water or flood water previously injected into the tion down-hole rather than producing with the oil to sur-
formation for pressure maintenance purpose. Produced face is recommended. The proactive and reactive down-
water is typically hot and corrosive, containing suspended hole water shut-off methods are listed in Fig. 2.
solids and oil from the formation and production opera- In smart completions, the flow control devices can be
tions, salts and chemicals injected at various points in the implemented to manage water cut based on economic
production system [15]. The residues of chemicals injected limit through well/field life. The inflow control device
to control asphaltene, corrosion and emulsion in soured (ICD) valve can delay and reduce water coning and break-
and asphaltenic oil field are the source of contaminants in through and enable production from multiple zones
produced water. with different permeability and pressures. However, even
though ICDs create additional pressure drop to balance
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Fig. 2 Proactive and reactive
water shut-off (WSO) tech-
niques
the production flux, but it cannot restrict unwanted efflu- to clean and operation cost according to field trial [4]. The
ents once they break through. The autonomous inflow self-selective plugging is based on concept of employing
control device (AICD) was introduced to address the ICD a liquid plugging which in a given period of time is capa-
limitations. AICD is a proactive solution to long horizontal ble of solidifying in the presence of water or brine under
wells which have a tendency to water/gas out towards the prevailed wellbore pressure and temperature. The relative
heel of the well by choking back these areas to give more permeability modifier technology is essentially polymer
uniform inflow profile along the length of the well [13]. systems which selectively restrict in-flow of water to the
The proactive technologies are self-regulating and autono- well, whilst allowing essentially unrestricted flow of oil.
mous. However, they are more expensive and dependent They offer the considerable advantage that they can be
on the field reservoir management decisions that make unselectively injected into the producing interval rather
their application limited. The mechanical water shut-off than having to be placed in the special zone using, for
techniques are more straight-forward. In case a zone at example, coil tubing.
the bottom of the perforated interval has watered out,
the well can simply be plugged back. However, where the
reservoir is layered or where there is commingle produc- 2 Diagnostic analysis workflow
tion from more than one reservoir, there may be a water
producing zone higher in well than zones producing oil. Although different water control efforts have been per-
In this case, it has been conventional to shut-off water pro- formed for supporting water production, the mechanisms
duction by a cement squeeze, or setting straddle packer of excessive water production were not clearly understood
or bridge plug across the watered out zone. Moreover, or confirmed. Knowing the specific water problem is
these methods introduce a limitation to tubing which is a essential to treating it. The process of candidate selection
critical consideration for monobore completions designed before execution and to define different types of exces-
for through-tubing well intervention. Also, almost all sive water production problem is an important subject to
mechanical water control technologies require at least investigate. The classic main problems are listed as water
the production logging tool (PLT) to identify the source coning, multilayer channeling and near wellbore prob-
of water and in mature wells, it is difficult to justify running lems. In reality, the problem could be the combination of
logging tools. Therefore, chemical treatments offers rather several mechanisms taking place over the period of time
cost-effective alternatives such as reservoir gel treatments, and compounding with one another. Figure 3 is a sum-
downhole separation and relative permeability modifier. mary of well-based excess water sources and the recom-
The chromium crosslinked polymer gels presented advan- mended solution for each type [1]. Well integrity studies
tage over cement and other mechanical devices due to its that contain both the completion-related problems such
flexibility of application, good control of setting time, ease casing leak and cement-casing or cement-formation
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bonds need to be performed to obtain a holistic solution
approach for well-based undesired water production.
Figure 4 is a summary of reservoir-based water sources
and the recommended solution techniques based on field
applications [4]. In case of oil water contact (OWC) move
up in a lower vertical permeability formation, bridge plug
and cement plug is the solution to abandon perforations
from the bottom. When OWC rises up near perforations in
a formation with relatively high vertical permeability, con-
ing occurs. Producing at the conning rate, a rate at which
oil can be produced without coning is often too low to be
economic. Placing a layer of gel above the OWC can rarely
stop coning. Lateral drainholes near the top of formation
with a great distance from the OWC can be a good alterna-
tive solution. Production of undesired water through fis-
sured network can occur in naturally fractured and faulted
systems. The fractures may be treated with a flowing gel
near producer. However, the fracture volume is difficult to
determine and it may also shutoff the oil-producing frac-
tures. High permeability layer without crossflow is com-
Fig. 3 Wellbore-based water source and solution
mon in multilayer reservoir when a high permeability zone
Fig. 4 Reservoir-based water source and solutions
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with flow barrier above and below is watered out from the field average and can be easily compared to each other
an active aquifer or waterflood injection well. The solu- with scatter plots. The candidates with higher than aver-
tion is application of shutoff fluids or mechanical shutoff age field performance water production and lower than
in either the injector or producer. If the high permeability the field average oil production from this plot proceed to
layer is not isolated by impermeable barriers, there is no the next level for reserve estimation. The conventional
barrier to stop the crossflow and attempts to modify pro- decline curve analysis (DCA) and the new proposed
N
duction or injection profile near wellbore are doomed to method ( q1 vs. q p ) to estimate cumulative production is
be short-lived and not economical. A solution is to drill a
o o
used to predict the candidates’ future performance by
lateral drainhole to access the undrained layers. The water- extrapolating the fitted decline curve function. Where, qo
injection oriented issues such as gravity segregation or stands for the oil rate and Np is the maximum cumulative
poor areal sweep are potential sources of water problem oil production from each well. Considering the general
in waterflood process. field experience that IOR treatments in the wells with
Figure 5 presents the applied workflow that is proposed higher predicated reserve allow better reservoir manage-
in the current study to identify the potential WSO candi- ment through sustained productivity [10], it is recom-
dates or the candidate wells that require more attention mended to proceed with the wells with big enough
for oil production up to their proved reserves. proved recoverable reserve. If the water produced into the
The heterogeneity index (HI) plot provides a quick wellbore remains below the WOR economic limit through
screening method to identify the preliminary candidate the well life the water is considered good water, as
wells with anomalous behavior (over or under perfor- described in workflow. If the filed economic level for han-
mance of the field average) for further analysis. Most dling of water at the surface for the candidate well reaches
importantly, this plot provides the foundation for the over- before the well reaches its expected reserve, the produced
all structure production approach [9]. In this analysis, well water is considered problematic that implies a limit to oil
performance is compared at the wellbore level. Individual production. Good candidates for water control are
well performances can be viewed as better or worse than
Fig. 5 Candidate selection workflow for water control methods
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expected to show an increase in water production and a
decrease in oil production at about the same time. Well
WOR and its derivative can be used to differentiate water
production mechanisms if coning and channeling. While
the water production from the source layer increases very
quickly for channeling, it increases relatively slowly for
coning. The derivative of WOR (WOR’) shows nearly a con-
stant positive slope for channeling and a changing nega-
tive slope for coning [5]. Stiff diagram is proposed to com-
pare average major ion composition for candidate well
water and study the signature of produced water based
on ion diagnosis [11]. if the candidate’s source of water is
not changing over time, it can be confirmed that the water
control methods can be applied to the candidate well for
enhancing the well performance.
3 Application and analysis
3.1 Filed example
The proposed workflow described in Fig. 5 is applied to
the production data history of a newly developed tight
carbonate field with micro-fracture network system. The
single completion, vertical production wells penetrate
multiple formation layers and produce from these lay-
ers where only one continuous shale barriers separates Fig. 6 HI plot of the case study field
the two main layers. As can be seen in Fig. 6, three wells
(W13, W11, W07) are in Tier 4 of the HI plot, with lower oil
production and higher water production compared to the are considered to proceed to DCA analysis using two dis-
field average. These wells in Tier 4 are subjected to proceed cussed methods. The DCA plots of each candidate are
with water shutoff screening analysis. W09 and W12 are shown in Figs. 7, 8 and 9.
in high production Tier 1, with oil and water production The economic limit for water oil ratio (WOR) for each
above the field average. W02, W03 and W04 wells are in field can be different depending on parameters such as
low production Tier 3, with lower oil and water production the water handling cost at surface. Good water is the water
than the field average probably due to mechanical issues. produced at a rate below the economic WOR, which is the
Finally, W05 and W06 wells are in Tier 1, which defines the water that produced oil can pay for it. The economic WOR
best wells in terms of production history due to higher level in our discussed carbonate field is equal to 30%. The
oil production and lower water production than the field next step is to extrapolate the current WOR to the eco-
average. nomic limit amount to identify the cumulative oil pro-
The HI plot parameters in y and x axis are described in duced before reaching that level. The historical WOR and
Eqs. 1 and 2, respectively. extrapolated plots of candidates are shown in Fig. 10a–c.
From the comparison of the calculated well life-time
Qw well
HSUMW = −1 (1) cumulative oil production (Np) and the cumulative oil pro-
Qw average of wells duction before reaching the WOR economic limit, it can
be seen that for candidate W07, the difference between
Qo well calculated reserve (Np) and the expected production up
HSUMOIL = −1 (2) to water handling limit is high that makes this candidate
Qo average of wells
a potential candidate to proceed to the next level of diag-
Based on Eqs. 1 and 2, the production wells that fall nosis. The WOR extrapolate plot for wells at Tier 2, which
into negative HSUMOIL and positive HSUMW region is high oil and low water, is also plotted in Fig. 11, to give a
during the production history, are selected as the first better comprehension of the problem that the candidate
candidate group. The candidates selected from this plot wells are facing in the future to produce oil. As can clearly
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Fig. 7 a Rate versus time DCA,
b 1/qo versus Np/qo for candi-
date W13
be seen in Fig. 11, the plotted well will not be facing limita- response to the choke size reduction in W07 from 44/64
tion from water production in the well life time. inch to 40/64 inch.
As the next step of workflow, the vintage plot or pro- Although up to this step, W07 candidate is already rec-
duction performance history of candidate wells, consist- ognized as the most obvious well for the consideration
ing of monthly oil, monthly water cut percentage and of water control, Chan plot of all candidates are shown in
chock size of well during production time, is shown in Fig. 13 to discuss the water production mechanisms. As
Fig. 12. According to this plot, the potential water shut-off can be seen in Fig. 13c, W07 shows a water coning situ-
candidate shows an increase in water production and a ation since WOR derivative vs. time showed a negative
decrease in oil production at about the same time, regard- slope after about 300 days of production and maintained
less of choke size changes. Based on Fig. 12, W07 shows a negative. For W13 and W11 candidates, the WOR derivate
constant increase in water cut percentage (wct%), regard- is growing positively or the negative slope is not formed
less of the choke size. As can be seen clearly in Fig. 12, yet, respectively that is in contrast with the W07 case. Con-
the wct% increased despite the oil rate reduction as the sidering the fact that WOC is not observed in this field yet
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Fig. 8 a Rate versus time DCA,
b 1/qo versus Np/qo for candi-
date W11
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Fig. 9 a Rate versus time DCA,
b 1/qo versus Np/qo for candi-
date W07
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Fig. 10 Recovery plot for candidates; a W13, b W11, c W07
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Fig. 11 Recovery plot for low
WOR wells a W06, b W05
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Fig. 12 Vintage plot
based on geological data, a localized water zone can be index (HI) plot. According to the analysis, if the proper
responsible for the observations in W07 candidates. water shut-off technique is not applied in the selected
Figure 14 is the stiff diagram which compares the rela- well, it will reach its WOR economic level almost at the half
tive proportions of major ions in the candidate well in four of its estimated production life. The observed production
different sampling times. The ion proportion scale guide is history suggested that the conventional method such as
also shown as a table in Fig. 14. As can be seen in Fig. 14, choke down did not help alleviate the water production
sodium, potassium and chloride are predominant ions in issue, which is a sign of an independent water produc-
all brine samples with almost the same proportions that tion layer source. The mechanism and source of produced
confirms the source of produced water remained the same water in the selected well was discussed based on diag-
during the production history. nostics plots and a localized water coning was predicted.
Our analysis highlighted the requirement of further
petrophysical and geological studies to determine the
4 Conclusions source of observed coning behavior of the candidate
well. Considering the well condition that is producing
A diagnostic workflow for water shut-off candidate selec- from multiple layers with different permeabilities and
tion based on production data-driven analytics was pro- pressures through the production lifetime, more special
posed and implemented in OFM database platform. The diagnostics for vertical communications are needed to
water shut-off screening workflow was applied to a tight perform to check crossflow. The special diagnostics for
carbonate oil field, which is facing the excess water pro- vertical communications can be through casing imaging
duction issues at the initial stage of reservoir develop- testing to evaluate the quality of cement job in well and
ment. The outcome of the applied screening workflow was identifying flow channels behind casing, multi-rate tests to
to identify the candidate well exposed to the critical water provide productivity index and average reservoir pressure
production. The selected well has been located in the low of each layer and choke back tests to provide diagnostics
oil and high water production region of the heterogeneity of vertical communication through pressure differences.
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Fig. 14 W07 stiff diagram
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest The author(s) declare that they have no compet-
ing interests.
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