Enhanced Reservoir Management by Optimizing Multilateral Drilling and Sidetrack Planning, Leveraging 1D-3D Reservoir Mapping Technologies

Summary Field X is an aging, mature field with naturally fractured, tight carbonate reservoirs characterized by low permeability and high heterogeneity associated with complex fault and fracture networks, resulting in high water cut and low recovery. To boost productivity, strategies included drilling multilaterals for comingled production from multiple layers separated by vertical permeability barriers and waterflooding with alternating rings of horizontal producers and injectors circling the flanks. Over time, the injected water has migrated through high-permeability zones, fractures, and faults, creating a complex saturation profile in the target reservoirs. Recent horizontal wells in reservoirs A encountered multiple swept zones, and relogging of old wells showed extensive water encroachment. To optimize multilateral placement for accessing bypassed oil and avoiding swept zones, 1D to 3D Reservoir Mapping Technologies were deployed in this field. The strategy was to map the reservoir’s resistivity profile in 3D space, to optimize the design of sidetrack wells to target zones at different stratigraphic levels with potential bypassed oil. The current paper discussed 3 case studies where 1D to 3D Reservoir Mapping technologies were deployed in the reservoir A in field X to access bypassed oil successfully and avoid proximity to swept zones.