Production performance of the Volve Oilfield

The Volve oilfield is located in the 15/9 Block that was awarded to Equinor in 1976. The Oilfield was developed with 24 wells. The production strategy of this field is explained in another article: The Initial Production Strategy.

PowerBI Reports

The production performance is demonstrated using a Business Intelligence software – PowerBI. These reports are designed to summarize the trends for liquid rate, pressure, Gas-Oil Ratio, Water Cut, Water Injected, Well count, Map position, Multi-well comparison, Completion type and Perforation details (Image 1).

The PowerBI project file is uploaded on Github here. Users are invited to submit issues and modifications to the project file on support@discovervolve.com. Thanks to Kushwant Singh for providing us his PowerBI project.

Image1: Power BI Report Summary page. Developed by Anjan Chhatrala

Summary

The field was brought on production in February, 2008 by completing well 15/9-F-12 in the Hugin formation. The well 15/9-F-12 produced at an initial rate of around 2900 Sm3/d with a GOR of 145 Sm3/Sm3 and zero water cut at choke size opening of around 30%. The initial reservoir pressure determined from the well test operation in 15/9-19 SR was 327.7 bar.

The Volve Oilfield had a peak oil rate of 9000 Sm3/d in Feb, 2009 and a peak gas rate of 130 MSm3/d in Jan, 2009. The peak water production rate from the reservoir was 9500 Sm3/d in Sept, 2014. The field had a plateau oil production of around 8900 Sm3/d from Sept, 2008 to Sept, 2009.

The field was abandoned in Aug, 2016 due to decline in oil production.

Well Statistics

The Status of every well associated with the Volve Oilfield is listed in the table below. Click on the next button to view the complete list of wells.

Well no.Well Status
15/9-19 AAbandoned
15/9-19 B&BT2Dry Well
15/9-19 S&SRAbandoned. Discovery-Well
15/9-F-1Abandoned, Sidetracked
15/9-F-1 AAppraisal, Abandoned
15/9-F-1 BWater Injection, Abandoned
15/9-F-1 CProducing Oil Well
15/9-F-4Water Injector
15/9-F-5Water Injector
15/9-F-7Water production well
15/9-F-9Water production well, Abandoned
15/9-F-9 AWater production well
15/9-F-10Appraisal
15/9-F-11Appraisal, Abandoned
15/9-F-11 T2Appraisal, Abandoned
15/9-F-11 AAppraisal, Producing Oil Well
15/9-F-11 BInfill, Producing Oil Well
15/9-F-12Producing Oil Well
15/9-F-14Producing Oil Well
15/9-F-15 AAppraisal, Abandoned
15/9-F-15 BAppraisal, Abandoned
15/9-F-15 CInfill, Abandoned
15/9-F-15 DInfill, Producing Oil Well

The individual Well wise production trend is summarized in the PowerBI dashboard below (Image 2).

Image 2: Well wise monthly, yearly production summary of the Volve Oilfield.

Oil Rate

The wells 15/9-F-12 and 15/9-F-14 have produced almost 85% for the crude oil from the Volve oilfield. The well 15/9-F-12 had peak oil production rate of 5561 m3/d and well 15/9-F-14 H had a peak oil production rate of 4885 m3/d. These wells had a plateau period of around 1 year (2008-2009) before inception of natural decline in oil rate.

The other wells 15/9-F-11, 15/9-F-15 D, 15/9-F-1 C, 15/9-F-5 were brought on production after 2013. The wells 15/9-F-11 and later were drilled as a part of the second drilling campaign of the Volve Oilfield (Image 3). Since these wells were drilled late in the life of the reservoir, they had relatively low oil production rates.

Image 3: 14 day moving average oil production rate of each well

Water Production Wells

Due to the presence of Barium in the Hugin formation water, precipitation would occur on using seawater for water injection. It was recommended to drill the water producers from the Utsira formation to supply the water injectors at the field with compatible water.

Two water production (15/9-F-9, 15/9-F-9A (Sidetracked) and 15/9-F-7) wells were planned to produce the water required for injection, both of which targeted the shallow Utsira formation. The wells were completed using 7 5/8” tubing with Electrical Submersible Pump (ESP).

The water producing requirements are restricted to a maximum of 8000 m3/d each; and 12 000 m3/d if both are producing at the same time.

Water Injection Wells

The aquifer support could not be quantified as sufficient to support the reservoir pressure. A water injection scheme of two wells (15/9-F-4, 15/9-F-5) was planned. Each well had an initial injection rate of 7500 m3/day which was later stabilized to around 5000 m3/d from 2012.

The reservoir had an initial injection rate of around 15000 m3/d and water later reduced to around 10000m3/d. The cumulative water injected in the reservoir was 30.33 Million m3 (Image 4).

Image 4: 14 day moving average water injection rate of each well

Water Cut and GOR

The field showed little variation in the GOR which remained between 130-180 Sm3/Sm3 (Image 5). The water cut started to increase exponentially from April, 2009 and reached a level of 80% in May, 2012.

Image 5: Water cut of Well Cut and GOR of the Volve Oilfield.

Pressure

The pressures are represented in the data using parameters like Average downhole pressure, Average Well Head Pressure, Average Tubing Differential (Del_P) and Average Annulus Pressure. The Daily pressure data indicate a strong influence of cyclical shut-in and flow periods of the wells. The reason is not very clear but may be linked to the maintenance schedule of the platform.

Due to the water-injection scheme the reservoir pressures do not drop – they remain steady or slightly increase. The wells are completed with packers resulting in a steady Annulus pressure over time. However, the Average Downhole pressure keeps increasing and approaches the Annulus pressure, this is probably due to reduction in choke size when water breakthrough occurs in the wells.

Image 6: The Downhole pressure and Choke size correlated with production

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4 thoughts on “Production performance of the Volve Oilfield”

  1. I want to do a project on low salinity waterflooding but it hard to get its data for building a simulation model. So I want the guidance about getting data related to it. I had been learning CMG for that but I would also like to apply some machine learning techniques for history matching. So I request you to guide me for that.

    1. I am not sure what data are you looking for but the Volve Oilfield does have low salinity waterflood injection.

  2. Where can i find the depth at which pressure data are recorded for each well, as well as pressure gradient? I need this info to correct downhole pressure data. Thanks!

  3. Good day, Mr. Ankit I am doing a geothermal model for Volve and I have been looking for a contour map from Databass but I couldn’t find it anywhere, I was wondering If you know if I can download this map somewhere or If you have it in your databases I would appreciate it a lot if you share it with me.
    Sincerely

    Housam

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