Lower Completion and Stimulation Technologies Between Managing Water Production and Enhancing Well Productivity / Injectivity: A Case Study from a Marginal Carbonate Field in Abu Dhabi

The objective of this paper is to present an evaluation of different lower completions and stimulation technologies implemented in a remote marginal field in Abu Dhabi. The installed lower completions fall into two main categories; those installed to improve well productivity/injectivity and those aimed at controlling water production. The field, with less than eight years of production history, comprises three stacked reservoirs facing challenges such as low reservoir pressure, poor productivity /injectivity, and early water production from large transition zones. Installation of lower completion offers a good opportunity to tackle these problems and optimize the field development plan. This case study presents detailed evaluation of well performance pre and post lower completion installation and /or stimulation, and the comparison with conventional wells to assess each technology's effectiveness. The evaluation parameters are productivity / injectivity indexes, oil production, water injection rates, water cut, EUR, and production / injection conformance. As stated, the installation of lower completion has two objectives: (1) to enhance productivity / injectivity, for which the smart liners and fishbone stimulation results will be discussed, and (2) to control water production, which will be evaluated through examples of the autonomous inflow control valve (AICV), autonomous inflow control device (AICD), inflow control device with sliding sleeve door (ICD + SSD), and isolation with blank pipe plus slotted liner. The limited entry liner has provided the best results in increasing productivity/ injectivity in one tight reservoir in the field. Oil producers and water injectors doubled the PI/ II, respectively. For water production, the AICV offered the best results by reducing the water cut in the pilot well in around 40% with stable oil production after three years of installation. The first lower completion installation in the field was in 2020; from there on, testing different technologies coupled with a comprehensive performance evaluation over the years identified the best lower completion and stimulation to produce the reservoirs and optimize future development.