World First ESP-Ready ERD Smart Completion – Innovative Solutions to Reduce Future Well Interventions

Extreme Reach Drilling (ERD) has gained significant traction in oil and gas industry due to the advantage of accessing hydrocarbon reserves from a single wellbore, thereby enhancing reservoir contact and resources efficiency. However, extreme reach wells targeting multiples reservoir sections with flow control and monitoring system are complex to be completed. Reservoir management with minimal well interventions is always a challenge. Hence, the Completion design must be engineered from the start to help optimize the resources, simplifying the processes and extending the asset life. This paper will describe a successfully implemented completion design that enables future installation and replacement of artificial-lift methods, with minimal intervention and without retrieving the complex flow-control and monitoring system. The significant challenge in completing extreme reach wells is ensuring that the completion can reach the target depth. Therefore, identifying appropriate friction factors to be used as basis of design is essential. Implementing recommended measures such as mechanical friction reducers, lubricants and strengthening the completion string is crucial. A tapered string design with different tubing weight was a key strategy to reduce the buckling risks in order to reach the target depth, but this required some wellhead modifications compared to standard operations. In addition, the selection of tapered string design was needed to meet the objective of allowing future installation and replacement of artificial-lift methods with minimum intervention. The completion design was continuously refined during the feasibility study stage to meet the well objectives, and the deployment procedures were meticulously prepared to ensure successful execution. The successful deployment of the smart completion with ESP-ready capabilities in an extreme reach well (ERD ratio of 5.2:1 MD/TVD) was achieved through the collaborative effort of a multi-disciplinary team. Through multiple iterations of torque and drag simulations to identify the optimal pipe combination and modifications of existing products and system integrity tests, the team addressed the key best practices and benefited from many lessons learned from similar operations. This well became the world's first fully completed extreme reach well with the ability to install and replace an ESP with minimal intervention to de-complete and without the need to retrieve the well smart completion. This ability to install and replace artificial lift systems with minimal disruption not only supports long-term operational efficiency but also contributes to more sustainable production practices, ultimately reducing the environmental impact and improving the cost-effectiveness. The valuable lessons learned will greatly contribute to refining the design and execution of future ERD projects in the oil and gas industry, ensuring more efficient, sustainable and successful outcomes.