An Operator and their partner in the Gulf of America was experiencing reduced production due to a suboptimal gas lift design, where the gas injection points were too shallow within the well completion. Unable to remove the existing completion, the operator engaged two companies, one who provides straddles, controllable barriers and Gas Lift equipment and another provider for e-line mechanical intervention to design and deploy a combined solution to improve production. The challenge was complicated by multiple restrictions in the original completion and the presence of an incompatible fluid in the annulus between the production packer and the deepest gas lift mandrel. These factors created additional hurdles for optimizing the gas lift while safeguarding the reservoir.
Scruggs et al. (Mon,) studied this question.