Search

Hydrocarbon production from a gas condensate reservoir has a major concern to the petroleum industry around the world. Due to pressure decline in a reservoir, liquid drops out of solution and cause a significant reduction of well productivity. As a result, huge amount of valuable oil stays underground. The proper production management for a gas condensate reservoir minimizes or eliminates the blocking problems. Optimization of condensate recovery can be achieved through appropriate selection of production and injection rates. However, determination of the optimal rates is a complex problem, involving many factors including geological uncertainty, rock petrophysical characteristics, fluid properties, economic costs, and technical ability. In this research, nature-inspired optimization algorithms are employed to evaluate the potential of production boost. Numerical testing and comparative study revealed that investigated natural-inspired algorithms outperform widely reported in the literature optimization methods and provide a higher quality solutions. The primary concern of this research is to develop an optimal gas condensate production strategy in terms of economic efficiency by utilization of nature-inspired optimization algorithm and providing their ability to generate better quality solution than engineering approach as well as gradient optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drilling cost is one of the most critical aspects in the reservoir management plan. Costs may exceed a million dollars; thus, optimal designing of the well trajectory in the reservoir and completion are essential. The implementation of a multilateral well (MLW) in reservoir management has great potential to optimize oil production. The object of this study is to develop an integrated workflow of end-point multilateral well placement optimization integrated with the reservoir simulator supported by artificial intelligence (AI) methods. The paper covers various types of MLW construction, including: horizontal, bi-, tri-, and quad-lateral wells. For quad-lateral wells, the capital expenditure is highest; nevertheless, acceleration of oil production affects the project's NPV (net present value), indicating the type of well that is most promising to implement in the reservoir. Tri- and quad-lateral wells can operate for 12.1 and 9.8 years with a constant production rate. The decreasing hydrocarbon production rate is affected by reservoir pressure and the reservoir water production rate. Other well design patterns can accelerate water production. The well's optimal trajectory was evaluated by the genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO). The major difference between the GA and PSO optimization runs is visible with respect to water production and is related to the modification of one well branch trajectory in a reservoir. The proposed methodology has the advantage of easy implementation in a closed-loop optimization system coupled with numerical reservoir simulation. The paper covers the solution background, an implementation example, and the model limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]