Field Applications of a Productivity Tool for Improved Oil Recovery (IOR)

In recent times, the oil industry has shown increasing awareness toward maintaining optimum well productivity through improved high-pressure, high-temperature (HP-HT) drilling and completion fluid design. However, the mechanisms of drilling fluid filtration and its impact on productivity performance under downhole conditions remain poorly understood.
In open-hole completions, productivity losses are particularly critical because near-wellbore damage is not bypassed by perforations. Moreover, a satisfactory model for simulating near-wellbore damage in terms of well flow performance—based on laboratory core test analysis—is still lacking for field applications.
This study presents results from extensive experimental data and analysis of static and dynamic filtration models. These results form the basis for semi-empirical mechanistic models, which have been integrated into a design and evaluation tool—the Productivity Tool (PRT). This tool predicts the effect of HP-HT drilling fluid filtration on formation productivity, specifically in terms of formation damage in vertical wells.

in this paper, we present applications of the PRT using field data from North Africa oilfields with both water-based and oil-based muds (WBM and OBM), both selected as suitable for HP-HT wells. The PRT shows good agreement with the field measurements.