A New Approach to Evaluate the Inflow Profile Heterogeneity of Lower Completion Horizontal Well in N Oilfield Middle East

Horizontal well is one of the main technologies applied in carbonate reservoir development, and open-hole completion is widely adopted in the horizontal wells of Oilfields Middle East. However, the open-hole completion faces several challenges during the well production life. For example, the water or gas breakthrough caused by the uneven production profile will decrease the oil production, increase the surface equipment cost to transport produced gas/water and have a negative influence on the final recovery factor. Therefore, the well-designed lower completion configuration and evaluation for the inflow profiles need to be studied for the purpose of a higher cumulative oil production and a higher recovery factor. In the present work, the inflow profile heterogeneity calculation approach is proposed, including two coefficients, inflow variation coefficient Cv and inflow Lorenz coefficient CL. Then, coupled model simulation is carried out to determine the optimal lower completion configurations with high efficiency. A production well case with a heterogeneity profile is presented, using the new approach to calculate the inflow variation coefficient Cv and inflow Lorenz coefficient CL between open-hole completion and well-designed lower completion under the coupled-model simulation, the result shows the inflow profile heterogeneity of open-hole completion is larger than the heterogeneity of well-designed lower completion. Therefore, by adopting the optimal lower completion configuration, the homogeneous profile can be achieved and will result in better production performance and a higher oil recovery factor. This approach was successfully verified by the simulation case, which makes a quantitative evaluation of the inflow profile heterogeneity and provides guidance to the lower completion configuration design and reservoir development.