What are the top ways to extend the life of a reservoir?

Well placement is a major determinant of plateau production and ultimate recovery rates and getting this right is key during field appraisal and development. To improve well placement and design is important to: - potential volume of rock/drainage radius: in both conventional and unconventional reservoirs - understand subsurface reservoir connectivity flow characteristics. - individual well’s projected EUR and optimum well spacing

Well placement and design are crucial for extending the life of a reservoir as they directly impact production efficiency and ultimate recovery. Optimal well placement ensures effective drainage of the reservoir, maximizing contact with hydrocarbons. Well design factors such as completion methods and artificial lift systems influence production rates and longevity. Properly placed and designed wells facilitate efficient reservoir management, minimize production challenges, and enhance overall reservoir performance, ultimately extending its productive life.

It depends on the set goals. Extending the reservoir's lifecycle simply for the sake of extension may not make much sense, unless our goal is to provide employment for residents of nearby cities.

Advanced reservoir mapping which entails geosteering, and geomapping-while-drilling may be utilized to leverage ultra-deep azimuthal resistivity measurements and inversions to provide sharper insights into reservoir distribution and quality. This technique provides greater flexibility in BHA design and a larger depth of detection capability to map lithological and fluid boundaries. The resulting map of the remote reservoir base is then incorporated into a geo model to optimize well placement for long-term drainage, accurately measure reservoir thickness, and extend the production plateau. Further, optimum placement of a production interval below the reservoir roof would maximize the well's production life by minimizing attic oil.

Combining engineering strategies, advanced monitoring, and technological innovation plays a crucial role in extending the life span of an oil and gas reservoir. These approaches aim to maximize hydrocarbon recovery and ensure operational efficiency throughout the reservoir's life cycle.

When you first drill a petroleum well, the pressure in the reservoir is naturally higher than the atmosphere so there's a high flow rate and production. However, as the pressure tends to get closer and closer to the atmospheric pressure, an innovative solution that is currently being tried out is CO2 injection to further push out the remaining fuel that's left inside the reservoir.

Need to understand if our goal is to achieve maximum oil recovery or to maximize profit. Depending on the situation, these goals may require different approache

In mature oilfields, waterflooding becomes increasingly essential in order to maximize oil recovery and extend the life of the reservoir, but optimizing its performance must be clearly addressed for effective implementation. Integrated approaches combining reservoir simulation, well modelling, and data-driven techniques may be used to improve waterflood performance. Especially, capacitance-resistance model (CRM), which relies on production/injection data as input to make simplifying assumptions of pressure maintenance, has proven to be a fast and effective tool for predicting waterflooding and reservoir characterization.

As reservoir pressure decreases due to production, the flow rate and recovery factor also decrease. To maintain or restore reservoir pressure, it is possible to inject fluids such as water, gas, or steam into the reservoir through injection wells. This practice can increase fluid displacement and mobility within the reservoir, as well as prevent or delay gas or water accumulation. Maintaining pressure is crucial to ensure continuous production efficiency and maximize the reservoir's life span, contributing to optimizing oil and gas recovery. These strategies are essential to ensure the sustainability and operational efficiency of oil and gas reservoirs, promoting production maximization over time.

Pressure maintenance is vital across various fields to sustain reservoir productivity and extend its life. By maintaining reservoir pressure through techniques like water or gas injection, the drive mechanism is preserved, ensuring efficient hydrocarbon recovery. This prevents premature decline in production rates, maximizes ultimate recovery, and delays abandonment. In gas fields, pressure maintenance prevents gas cap blowdown and water encroachment, optimizing gas production. In oil fields, it facilitates improved sweep efficiency, reducing the risk of bypassed oil. Overall, effective pressure maintenance strategies are indispensable for prolonging reservoir life, maximizing asset value, and ensuring sustainable resource exploitation.

To extend the life of an oil and gas reservoir, the use of artificial lift plays a crucial role. In situations where the reservoir pressure is not sufficient to overcome friction and hydrostatic losses in the well and surface equipment, artificial lift systems such as pumps or gas lifters can be employed to increase well pressure and flow rate. This allows production from low-pressure or depleted zones, increases the drawdown and recovery factor, and reduces downtime and operational costs.

Artificial lift plays a critical role in extending the life of a reservoir by maintaining or enhancing production rates as natural reservoir pressure declines. By artificially lifting hydrocarbons to the surface, it ensures continued extraction of resources that would otherwise become uneconomical to recover. This technology is essential in mature fields where natural pressure depletion occurs. Artificial lift methods such as electric submersible pumps, rod pumps, and gas lift systems help sustain production, maximize ultimate recovery, and prolong the economic viability of the reservoir. Without artificial lift, reservoirs would experience premature decline, leading to reduced revenues and potentially premature abandonment.

Carbon dioxide EOR is an established technique to tap into typically two-thirds of the original oil in place left behind by primary and secondary recovery methods. The method, which now accounts for more than 5% of the US oil production, has proven to be effective to extend the productive life of an reservoir by several decades, and can lead to recovery of millions of barrels of additional oil. Given the right conditions, injected carbon dioxide is able to dissolve and displace oil residue that is trapped in rock pores. Mixing with oil, it decreases oil viscosity, increases its pressure, and forms a concentrated oil bank that is swept to producing wells.

Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques are paramount in extending the life of a field by unlocking additional reserves that conventional methods cannot reach. EOR methods such as water flooding, gas injection, and chemical injection alter reservoir conditions to improve oil displacement and recovery efficiency. By mobilizing trapped hydrocarbons and increasing sweep efficiency, EOR can significantly boost ultimate recovery rates, often by 20-30% or more. This not only maximizes production but also extends the economic life of the field, delaying abandonment and maximizing returns on investment. EOR plays a vital role in sustaining oil production and ensuring the continued viability of mature fields.

Additionally, managing the development system to redistribute filtration flows within the reservoir can also increase oil recovery. For instance, periodic injection.

Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques are paramount in extending the life of a field by unlocking additional reserves that conventional methods cannot reach. EOR methods such as water flooding, gas injection, and chemical injection alter reservoir conditions to improve oil displacement and recovery efficiency. By mobilizing trapped hydrocarbons and increasing sweep efficiency, EOR can significantly boost ultimate recovery rates, often by 20-30% or more. This not only maximizes production but also extends the economic life of the field, delaying abandonment and maximizing returns on investment. EOR plays a vital role in sustaining oil production and ensuring the continued viability of mature fields.

Develop a comprehensive annual surveillance plan based on input from WRS (PDF and field reviews). Continuously monitor and track the plan, making adjustments as needed. This ensures proactive management of reservoir performance and timely response to changes in production behavior or reservoir conditions

Time-lapse seismic monitoring is a proven technology that has significant potential to impact reservoir management and drive and to optimise life-of-field depletion planning. In the early stages, it offers the potential to identify inconsistencies with early simulation models and indicate possible intervention strategies. And in late field life, it can be used to highlight bypassed pay and find late stage infill drilling opportunities.

What about implementing a combination of CCUS - CO2EOR and renewable as geothermal, wind and solar? Could it improve economics, ESG and circular economy. Open for discussion.

The most important goal is to improve sweep efficiency. This type of enhanced oil recovery has the advantage of minimal operational changes. Various chemicals and/or changes in water chemistry can create additional recovery up to 15-25% of original oil in place. That boost is equivalent to 400-700 Billion barrels from known resources.

Additional production can be achieved in a number of ways: - recompletion of existing wells. - re-configuration of producer-injector wells. - development maturation of outpost satellite targets. - exploration of shallower or deeper formations above or below the existing development. - exploitation of small pools and stranded accumulations using sub-sea tieback