Novel Flow Assurance Technique Using Constructed Blockage Identification Plot Restoring and Gaining Oil Production, South Kuwait

Abstract Thousands of wells in Kuwait Oil Company are flowing through flowline networks to multiple Gathering Centers (GC) while a flow assurance challenge of blockage has been experienced with excessive back pressure, reducing flow rates and downgrading their full potential. For high productivity wells, such unwanted reductions could be substantial in negatively affecting GC production. The huge number of wells to be monitored and analyzed poses a challenge with the limited number of subsurface engineers and field operators to detect and rectify the found blockages. To optimize the blockage detection and rectification workflow, the Subsurface Team from KOC and bp created a practical analytical blockage identifier tool called the BIP (Blockage Identification Plot) that helps to detect anomaly faster among the thousands of producer wells, efficiently helping to avoid potential production loss. This analysis technique is constructed based on the equations of pressure drop across choke and horizontal pipeline. By populating it using wells production and field data using a constructed cross plot, the suspected blocked wells will be easily screened as high-pressure outliers of the straight-line trend in the cross plot. The plotting formulation is created in which the wells in the same production manifold with normal pressure drop will fall close to the straight-line trend. This enables effective screening of suspected blocked wells and therefore saves time in identifying them amongst the massive well stock. The technique has been validated in the field and brought great results in increasing overall production. In one of the GCs, from the first campaign the field rectification works resulted around 3,500 BOPD of restoration from cleaning and rectifying identified wells by the BIP. This is an improvement to the production loss detection with an aim to sustain and even increase the GC production. More restored rates are expected in the future with continuous application of the BIP approach This is the first initiation of a blockage identification workflow for high number of wells network without the need to visit the wells which highly enhance and sustain production and support production operations saving a lot of time and effort. Furthermore, creating screening practices which eliminate production losses due to wells suffering from flow assurance issues.