Project overview: The challenge
The Valhall oil field -a tight chalk reservoir in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea- is challenging to produce due to the risk of chalk influxes. Under certain conditions of stress in the wellbore, brine saturation and high porosity, chalk collapses and can fluidize, entering the production liner and blocking it. This causes disruptions in the production of the reservoir, as well as economic losses due to the cost of deferred production and costly clean-out well interventions.
Solution: Our approach
Our client, AkerBP, assembled an interdisciplinary team that has adopted a holistic approach to investigate -and eventually avoid- chalk influxes in this challenging oil field. The project’s approach is threefold: a research component with laboratory experiments to mimic -under controlled conditions- what happens in the field, testing of new technologies and their chalk detection capabilities, and finally the development of a suite of hybrid physics and data-driven based models to assess a safe operational window for the wells.
Expert Analytics consultants participate in all three phases of the project thanks to their research background and versatility. Our team has developed and deployed data science models in the client’s platforms (DOF, CDF, and Azure) that are used by the asset engineers to monitor the status of their wells. In addition, we assess the client in the use of new technologies for solids detection, evaluating different vendors, and collaborating with them to propose tailored improvements to their products. Finally, we are also involved in the laboratory experiments aimed at studying the transport of chalk in multiphase flow, its rheology and testing of detection and monitoring technologies.
Results
Early chalk detection allows for decision support in the asset’s daily operations. Since implementation in 2021 our tools have aided the production team in increasing production by providing near real-time insight into the current conditions of the wells, as well as the risk for each well of suffering a chalk influx. Engineers can make more informed decisions on production optimization, key decision support for daily operations, and avoid unnecessary downtime.
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