SPE 130302

Water Coning Model for Horizontal Wells in High Mobility Reservoir, West
Kuwait
K. Al-Enezi, O.P.Das, M.Aslam, R. Bahuguna, and A. Latif, Kuwait Oil Company
Copyright 2010, Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper was prepared for presentation at the CPS/SPE International Oil & Gas Conference and Exhibition in China held in Beijing, China, 810 June 2010.
This paper was selected for presentation by a CPS/SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not
been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers,
its officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to
reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.

Abstract
Water coning is a serious problem in horizontal wells in Burgan reservoir of Minagish field located in West Kuwait. The
reservoir consists of massive channel sands with active bottom aquifer and having very high permeability in the order of few
Darcy. The reservoir contains medium quality crude having viscosity of about 30 cp with mobility ratio of 30 to 40. The
localized increase in drawdown at sand-face due to high liquid production rate results in early water breakthrough in most of
the horizontal wells, even with high stand off from OWC (Oil Water Contact). After water breakthrough the water cut in the
wells starts increasing strictly, resulting in by passed oil region below horizontal well. As producing water-oil ratio starts
increasing, the operating cost of the well and oil production cost starts rising significantly. In one of the horizontal well of
Burgan reservoir, the water cut increased to 90% over a very short period of production and the water cone could not subside
even after the well was shut-in for almost three years, confirmed by running the water saturation logs in the subject well as
well as in the nearby offset wells. The water saturation logs clearly indicates the oil water interface and the extent of water
coning.
The paper covers an analytical model developed for horizontal well to predict the critical drawdown, critical production
rate, extent of water coning, time for water breakthrough and shut-in time required to subside the cone for very high mobility
Burgan reservoir. The predicted results are in agreement with the actual well performance and production logging results.
The detailed coning study and model presented in this paper have assisted in planning the advanced completion
techniques like Inflow Control Device (ICD) and intelligent multilateral wells with ICD, ICV (Inflow Control Valve)
completions to address the severe water coning problems. This allows uniform depletion of reservoir below the horizontal
wells for facilitating the steady water-oil interface upward movement below the wellbore. Also the horizontal wells will be
placed at optimum distance from the OWC to maximize oil recovery and minimizing the risk of by passed oil.
Introduction
The Minagish field is located in the West Kuwait (figure 1) is a north-south trending anticline with hydrocarbon contained in
six major reservoirs ranging in age from early Jurassic to late Cretaceous. The Minagish field contains both sandstone and
carbonate reservoirs. The Burgan sandstone reservoir consists of clastic material with minor amounts of carbonatic cements,
which appear in the transition zone between continental to marine dominated environments. Generally the sand bodies, silt
and shale layers are sedimented randomly within the formation. The general facies trend within the Burgan formation is from
a low stand system into high stand system units. The best developed reservoir parts are having higher porosity and ultra high
permeability in the order of few Darcy. The reservoir is underlain by an active aquifer causing the bottom water drive. Also
the reservoir contains medium quality crude with high viscosity of about 30 cp at downhole conditions and having the
mobility ratio of 30 to 40. Several horizontal wells have been drilled in the Burgan reservoir showing severe bottom water
coning, within few months of production. The water cut in these wells is increasing rapidly leads to poor oil recovery and by
passed oil zones. During the initial phase of development vertical wells were placed but it watered out quickly. Therefore in
order to control the early water breakthrough and to maximize the oil recovery it was decided to drill horizontal wells making
the highest possible stand off from OWC. Even if with the very high standoff in horizontal wells the early water breakthrough
was reported with few months of production. In one of the horizontal well in Burgan reservoir, the water cut increased to 90%
over a very short period of production and the water cone could not subside after the well was shut-in for almost three years,
confirmed by running the water saturation logs in the subject well as well as in the nearby offset wells. The water saturation
logs clearly indicates the oil water interface and the extent of water coning. Therefore, it was the big challenge for optimum
production strategy to produce the wells at considerably higher rate and achieving higher oil recovery. This could be possible,

SPE 130302

if the fluid flow mechanism as a result of interaction of forces in the reservoir is fully understood especially for very high
mobility reservoir.
Despite the need for an improved understanding of coning in horizontal wells, the inherent difficulties in modeling of
water coning considering finite conductivity horizontal wells requires comprehensive investigations. Particularly, the lack of
simplified analytical models of cone build-up and practical methods to compute the breakthrough time of finite-conductivity
horizontal wells including the ultra high mobility are not yet fully developed and analyzed. However even with numerical
reservoir simulators these conditions are simulated with many limitations.
The objective of this study is to present an analytical model for coning in finite conductive horizontal well and predict
the critical drawdown, critical production rate, extent of water coning, time for water breakthrough and shut-in time required
to subside the cone for very high mobility Burgan reservoir. It assisted in planning the advanced completion techniques like
Inflow Control Device (ICD) and intelligent multilateral wells with ICD, ICV (Inflow control valve) completions to address
the severe water coning problems. This allows uniform depletion of reservoir below the horizontal wells for facilitating the
steady water-oil interface upward movement below the wellbore. Also the horizontal wells will be placed at optimum
distance from the OWC to maximize oil recovery and minimizing the risk of by passed oil regions below the horizontal well.

Figure 1: Location of the Minagish Field in West Kuwait

Mathematical Model Description

During well production three different forces working in the reservoir, they are viscous force, gravity force and capillary
force. Tackling the coning problem several researchers1-8 have simulated and developed the water coning model analytically
and physically for horizontal wells. However these models assumes no capillary pressure effect and most of the model
assumes piston like displacement with unit mobility ratio.
Interaction of Gravity and Viscous Forces
The ratio of gravity to viscous force

; for Burgan reservoir the difference between oil and water

is very small with a very high mobility ratio of about

density is very small about 0.236 gram /cc and the value of
30 - 40, leading to a dominant viscous force over gravity force. When the viscous force highly dominates over the gravity
force, resulting in low oil recovery due to poor displacement efficiency, because the bottom water encroaches in to the oil
zone forming the most severe water cresting problems.
Effect of Capillary Forces
Oil recovery is higher for the system with low interfacial tension or capillary forces. For the system with low capillarity, the
restriction on the movement of oil-water interface is lower so that the development of water cresting is better more uniform
resulting in better displacement efficiency. Therefore the effects of capillary forces were considered for water coning analysis
for horizontal wells in Burgan reservoir.

SPE 130302

Water Cone Model and Calculation of Cone Breakthrough Time

The Burgan reservoir is an oil wet reservoir where water zone is continuous to the oil bearing strata. In such a system viscous
and gravitational forces act upon the oil water interface. If the viscous force exceeds the gravitational force, then a cone is
formed and it grows towards the wellbore until the gravitational forces balances the viscous force at some elevation. The
maximum production rate to limit the pressure gradients at the level of gravitational gradient is called the critical production
rate for water coning. However factors such as production mechanism, flow conditions and the interaction between the fluids,
affect the coning behavior and practically the critical production rate is too small to consider as economic production rate.
The cone behavior is increasing due to Increasing mobility ratio, increasing" ratio, increasing production rate, decreasing
and increase in capillary pressure. The water coning model to
the standoff from the OWC, decreasing
calculate the cone breakthrough time is based on the model provided developed in reference9, 10, and 11.
The sketch of the system studied is shown in the figure 2. The well is located at (0, 0, Zw) where Zw is the distance from
original oil water contact. In this study, we considered an active aquifer that supplies water in to the oil zone without
significant loss of its potential. In such system bottom water drive is the main production mechanism and the flow is mainly
in the vertical direction.

Figure 2: Schematic of water coming in Well A

Let is the initial reservoir pressure which, in view of the physical presentation is preserved at the OWC. P (r,z) is the point
in the oil phase and Q (r, Zf) is the point on the oil water interface, then the net fluid potential function at point M is written as
, ,
Where we defined

, ,

, ,

, ,

, ,

. (1)

(2)

Now at the oil water interface, the velocities of oil and water are identical and are given by
, ,

, ,

(3)

The velocity of the water oil interface at y=0 is given by

(4)
Where,
Therefore the distance travelled by the cone apex and the time of travel is related by
(5)

SPE 130302

After integrating we calculated the breakthrough time as

(6)

The dimensionless potential can be written as

Where

(7)

and

(8)

The dimensionless distance in the horizontal direction is given by

/

The dimensional rate

.

&

, where L is the total length of the horizontal well.

and dimensional time

is given by

and

(9)

Therefore by combining the equations 6, 7, 9 the dimensionless water breakthrough time becomes
(10)
The equation 10 gives the dimensionless time for the top of the cone to reach some dimensionless elevation" ". To compute
. Where
is the
the dimensionless breakthrough time the dimensionless vertical distance is defines as
dimesionless distance of horizontal well axis from the original OWC and
is the dimensionless wellbore radius defined
by13.

(11)

In order to calculate the dimensionless breakthrough time as per equation (10), the dimensionless potential gradient in the
is calculated by applying the following algorithms.
vertical direction

1.

The horizontal wellbore is descretised in to n small equal segments. The segments are numbered from 1
at the toe of the lateral to n at the heel of the lateral.

2.

A coupled reservoir inflow model and wellbore model is developed14 to calculate the drawdown and flow rate from
each segment by considering the wellbore frictional pressure drop and acceleration pressure drop inside wellbore.
The coupled reservoir inflow model and wellbore model is described in Appendix A.

3.

The dimensional flow rate

4.

Finally the dimensionless potential gradient in the vertical direction

and dimensional time

Here ,

is calculated as

for each segment is calculated by using the equation (9).

(12)
and

(13)

SPE 130302

Critical Production Rate and Drawdown for Water Coning

The water always moves to the direction of least resistance in the reservoir, which is balanced by its gravity to maintain
equilibrium. The oil production in the well creates a pressure drawdown which elevates the oil water contact (OWC) in the
immediate vicinity of the well. Water has the tendency to remain below the oil because of its higher density, which
counterbalances the pressure drawdown caused by the oil production. The production rate of a well is directly proportional to
both the pressure drawdown and the reservoir permeability and there are three forces that affect the fluid flow distribution
around the wellbore i.e. capillary force, gravity force and viscous force. At a given time, there is a balance of these forces at
any point in the reservoir. When the oil production rate is constant in a well and the net viscous force and capillary forces
acting in the vertical direction is less than the gravity force at the wellbore, then the water cone is stable and will not break
into the well. If the oil production rate is increased and makes the vertical-acting viscous force along with capillary force
exceed the gravity force at the wellbore, the cone will rise and eventually break into the oil well, and is called water
breakthrough. The minimum oil production rate at which breakthrough occurs is called the critical production rate.
The gravity forces is given by
0.433

(14)

Brooks Corey formulations (1966) is used to calculate the capillary pressure and is mentioned as
(15)
Here S is the normalized water saturation.
Therefore at vertical equilibrium
(16)
As the water moves towards the wellbore in vertical direction the water saturation changes and hence the normalized water
saturation also changes thereby the capillary pressure changes and the coning tendency will change accordingly.
The critical oil production rate in case of our study is calculated as follows
1.

The horizontal wellbore is descretised in to n small equal segments. The segments are numbered from 1 at the toe
of the lateral to n at the heel of the lateral.

2.

A coupled reservoir inflow model and wellbore model is developed14 to calculate the drawdown and flow rate from
each segment by considering the wellbore frictional pressure drop and acceleration pressure drop inside wellbore.
The coupled reservoir inflow model and wellbore model is described in Appendix A.

3.

The max drawdown (critical drawdown) in each well segment at critical production should be equal to
for that segment.
Based on the critical drawdown defined in step 3, the critical oil production rate for stable water coning is calculated.

4.

Stability of Oil Water Interface

When the mobility ratio between the displacing and displaced fluid is adverse which is the case for Burgan reservoir, the
stability at any point in the interface depends on its local velocity15. If the local velocity is higher than the critical velocity,
then fingering flow occurs. For bottom water displacement the critical velocity of water at which the oil water interface
becomes unstable can be estimated by,

.. (17)

Any velocity more than the critical velocity of the water and corresponding production rate the oil water interface doesnt
move uniformly, piston like displacement, but it starts to fingering in oil zone through high permeability region along the
horizontal wellbore without displacing the oil resulting in very early water breakthrough and a by-passed oil region below the
horizontal wellbore. Therefore the horizontal section of the well where critical velocity is less will have the most unstable oil
water interface and will result in quick premature water breakthrough. Additionally as the water front moves towards the
horizontal wells the water saturation increases resulting in increased mobility ratio and decreased critical velocity resulting in
the fast water movement. The critical velocity profile along the horizontal length with varying water saturation and mobility
ratio for Well A of Burgan reservoir is presented in figure 3.

SPE 130302

3.5
Sw=26%&M=1.67
3

Sw=32.4%&M=4.15

Critical Velocity (ft/day)

Sw=41.1%&M=13.77
2.5

Sw=49.8%&M=41

1.5

0.5

0
7000 7100 7200 7300 7400 7500 7600 7700 7800 7900 8000 8100 8200 8300 8400

al

HorizontalLength (ft)
Figure 3: Critical Velocity profile along the horizontal well for Well A.

The graph presented in figure 3, concludes that the critical velocity is relatively less in the region of 7600 ft to 8050ft across
the horizontal length as compared to the total horizontal well for whole ranges of mobility ratio and water saturation.
However this region across the horizontal length is more unstable with increasing mobility ratio. The result predicted by this
model is in close agreement with the PLT results as shown in figure 4. The PLT results have also indicated that the first water
cresting and water fingering has occurred in the region of 7600 ft to 8016 ft across the horizontal section of Well A.

Figure 4: Water Coning in Horizontal Well A indicated by PLT.

Prediction of Water Cone Subsidence Time

When the well was shut-in condition the viscous forces are negligible, and the gravity and capillary forces are in equilibrium.
The gravity force pushes the water down where as the capillary forces tries overcome the gravity forces and makes the cone
stable. During the production shut-in period, it is almost like two stationary fluid layers divided by a conical interface. Oil is
above the interface and water in below. Thus there is no external force present during the water cone subsidence period. This
also makes the cone subsidence process much slower than that of the cone growing process. The water cone subsidence time
calculations are detailed in reference (16). In this work the water cone subsidence time is predicted by the model developed in
reference (16). Considering that initial time t =0 when the well was shut-in and the subsidence of water cone started in each
segment of the horizontal well. Thus the solution for instantaneous water cone height is16,

SPE 130302

sin

cos

.. (18)

The transient cone height at its apex can be found by replacing x = 0 in the above equation,

sin

.. (19)

Here,

.. (20)

.. (21)
By applying the equation 18, 19, 20 and 21 the water cone subsidence time for the horizontal well in the Burgan reservoir was
calculated.
Field Observation of Water Cone subsidence
It was observed that there is no movement of fluid during the well shut-in for about 3 years is mainly due to the small density
difference of 0.236 gram /cc and effective capillary pressure which counter balance the downward movement of oil water
interfaces. To validate the results predicted by the model the saturation log TDT was run in horizontal Well A and its
surrounding well. The saturation log results confirmed that there is no water cone settlement at all even if the well was shut-in
for 3 years.

Figure 5: Saturation log TDT evaluation of surrounding Well B

The saturation log in figure 5 shows that there is about 32 ft of oil water contact rise due to continuous well production and
the water cone has not subsided even after the 3 or more years of well shut-in time.
Water Cone Model Results Validation with Field Results of horizontal Well A
The Well A was completed in the Lower Burgan sand, with the well trajectory shown in figure 2. Due to high viscosity and
medium crude property and medium reservoir pressure, the well could not flow to surface naturally. Therefore the ESP
completion was installed in the well. The flowing bottomhole pressure at the heel of the well is almost constant for the

SPE 130302

specified flow rate within the ESP operating range. The well could not be flow at critical production because it falls below the
ESP range and the flow rate is too low to consider it as economic production. Therefore the well started with about 4500
STB/day production rate.
Based on the node pressure at the heel, the drawdown at each of the well segments are calculated based on the algorithm
presented in Appendix A. The flow rate contribution of each segment is also calculated based on the drawdown and using the
algorithm presented in Appendix A. The water cone breakthrough time is calculated based on the methodology presented in
this paper. The model predicted that the water will breakthrough from the toe section of the well within about one month of
production with the continuous production rate of about 4500 STB / day.
The predicted results was compared with actual well performance results as depicted in figure 6, and PLT results as depicted
in figure 4 and were in close agreement with field results.
12000
Total Liquid Rate

Production Rate (Bbls/Day)

10000

Oil Rate
Water Rate

8000

6000

4000

2000

0
3-Jan-05 19-Mar-05 2-Jun-05 16-Aug-05 30-Oct-05 13-Jan-06 29-Mar-06 12-Jun-06 26-Aug-06 9-Nov-06
Date
Figure 6: Well performance result of Well A

The first water breakthrough was observed in the well within about 20 days of production. The oil water interface is found to
be unstable and stated to migrate towards heel section of the well and the water cut in the well started to increase
exponentially, and eventually the well is totally watered out within about 1.5 years of production. A large volume of by
passed oil was left below this well. A detailed geological analysis along with high resolution seismic interpretation was
carried out for this well, the observations are as follows
1.

The high water production (98%) experienced in Well A is due to regional coning effect, which is noticed 125
meters westwards in nearby Well B.

2.

The fault has no relation with the high water cut in this well.

3.

It is noticed for the first time a rise-up of about 34 feet in the OWC mainly due to water coning.

4.

The latest PLT shows the entire horizontal section is totally watered-out.

The results from the Water Cone Model were further validated for several horizontal wells present in the Burgan reservoir and
the actual well performance results were analyzed by utilizing PLT, high resolution seismic and geological model. The results
were in close agreement with the model.
Way Forward
In order to control the severe water coning problem in horizontal wells, the advanced completion techniques like Inflow
Control Device (ICD) and intelligent multilateral wells with ICD, ICV (Inflow control valve) completions are planned for

SPE 130302

Burgan reservoir. The model will assist in further planning of advanced completion techniques in order to address the severe
water coning problems and to allow uniform depletion of reservoir below the horizontal wells to facilitating the steady water
table movement below the wellbore to maximize the oil recovery by producing the well at optimum production rate.
Conclusions
1. The study of production performance of horizontal wells in ultra high mobility Burgan reservoir is performed
successfully and the results obtained from the model were in close agreement with the actual field results.
2. The wellbore hydraulics plays the major role in predicting the well productivity (finite conductivity horizontal
wells), and water coning behavior. The frictional pressure drop and the acceleration pressure drop play a major role
in predicting the drawdown and associated coning behavior.
3. The water coning is mostly influenced by very high mobility ratio (~40) and Oil wet reservoir characteristics.
4. In the case of Burgan reservoir where wellbore pressure drop is significant, increasing the horizontal well length
beyond a limiting value will not add any value to minimize water coning behavior.
5. For Burgan reservoir ICD completion is the most optimum solution for controlling severe water coning and
uniform depletion for maximizing oil recovery.
6. ICD completion should be used along with the swell packers to isolate the high permeability sections for flow
regulation to eliminate water coning problem and silt section to minimize sand production.
7. The innovative water coning model and its integration with actual field result are found to be very useful tool in
analyzing the well performance of Burgan reservoir.
8. The well production performance is not improved after shutting the well for long period of time, draws a learning
curve for selecting the optimum development plan of ultra high mobility reservoir like Burgan reservoir.

Nomenclature
amax
B
b
E
ESP
F
g
h
h1
hm
hp
ht
Iani
Js
Js (i)
k
ks
kv
kh
Ko
L
LD
M
mv
n
OWC
Pi
Pe
Pwf
Pw
Pw (i)

= half length of the horizontal axes of damaged zone at the heel, ft

= Formation Volume Factor, RB / STB
= a variable to approximate cone shape equation
= hydraulic conductivity, ft/sec
= electrical submersible pump
= specific storage , 1/(1/ft)
= acceleration due to gravity, 32 ft/sec2
= true vertical length of well segment, ft
= thickness from top of layer to top of well segment, ft
= measured length of well segment, ft
= length of production interval, ft
= segment thickness, ft
= permeability anisotropy, dimensionless
= specific productivity index of an anisotropic media, STB/day/psi/ft
= specific productivity index in the middle of segment i, STB/day/psi/ft
= effective permeability , md
= effective permeability in damaged zone , md
= vertical permeability, md
= horizontal permeability, md
= Bessels function of second order
= horizontal wellbore length, ft
= dimensionless horizontal wellbore length, ft
= Mobility ratio
= coefficient of volume compressibility of soil, ft2 /lbf
= number of segments
= oil water contact
= reservoir pressure at oil water contact, psi
= reservoir pressure at boundary, psi
= wellbore pressure at heel, psi
= wellbore pressure, psi
= wellbore pressure at the boundary of segment i-1 and i , psi

10

SPE 130302

Pavg-w (i) = average wellbore pressure in segment i , psi

dp
= pressure drop, psi
dPacc
= acceleration pressure drop, psi
dPfric
= frictional pressure drop, psi
q
= flow rate, STB / day
qD
= dimensionless production rate
qi
= production rate from lateral i, STB / day
q(i)
= production rate from segment i, STB / day
qs
= production rate per unit length of the wellbore STB / day/ft
Q
= total production rate, STB / day
R
= coefficient of cone subsidence
re
= drainage radius ,ft
rw
= wellbore radius ,ft
rD
= dimensionless radius ,ft
rwD
= dimensionless wellbore radius ,ft
Sr
= partial penetration skin factor
S
= slant skin
S(i)
= formation damage skin factor in the middle of segment i, STB / day
Sor
= residual oil saturation, fraction
Swi
= irreducible water saturation, fraction
t
= time , days
tD
= dimensionless time
v
= velocity, ft/sec
w
= reservoir width, ft
x
= distance in x direction, ft
x(i)
= distance of middle of segment i from the toe, ft
x
= well segment length, ft
y
= distance in y direction, ft
z
= distance in z direction, ft
zf
= distance of water oil interface from OWC, ft
zw
= distance of wellbore from original OWC, ft
zf
= distance of water oil interface from OWC, ft
zD
= dimensionless vertical distance, ft
zwD
= dimensionless distance of wellbore from original OWC, ft

= viscosity, cp

= porosity

= potential function, psi

= potential function, psi
D
= dimensionless potential function
o
= mobility of oil
w
= mobility of water
o
= density of oil, pounds /ft3
w
= density of water, pounds /ft3

= density difference between water and oil, pounds /ft3

= specific gravity difference between water and oil

Acknowledgement
With kind regards, authors would like to thank West Kuwait field development management for providing the excellent
support and cooperation to produce the work described in this paper. The special thank goes to the field development group of
West Kuwait Minagish field for their proper cooperation in useful data gathering and model preparation. At last but not the
least authors would like to thank the Kuwait Oil company (KOC) for granting the permission to publish this paper and
facilitating all necessary requirements to prepare the paper.

SPE 130302

11

References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

7.

8.
9.

10.
11.
12.

13.
14.

15.

16.

Muskat, M. and Wyckoff, R. D.: An Approximate Theory of Water-coning in Oil Production, Trans., AIME (1935) 114,144163.
Arthur, M. G.: Fingering and Coning of Water and Gas in Homogeneous Oil Sand, Trans., AIME (1944) 45, 184-199.
Giger, F.: Analytic 2D Models of Water Cresting Before Breakthrough for Horizontal Wells, paper SPE 15378, presented at the
1986 Annual Technical Conference, New Orleans, LA, Oct. 5-8.
Chaperon. I.: Theoretical Study of Coning Toward Horizontal and Vertical Wells in Anisotropic Formations: Subcritical and
Critical Rates, paper SPE 15377, presented at the 1986 Annual Technical Conference, New Orleans, LA, Oct. 5-8.
Aulie T., Ashiem, H. and Oudeman, P.: Experimental Investigation of Cresting and Critical Flow Rate of Horizontal Wells,
SPE 26639, SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Houston, U.S.A. 3-6 October 1993.
Wibowo, W., BP Indonesia, Permadi, P., Mardisewojo, P and sukarno, P., Institte Teknology Bandung Behavoir of Water
Cresting and Production Performance of Horizontal well in Bottom Water Drive Reservoir: A scaled Model Study, paper SPE
87076, presented at the SPE Asia pacific conference on Integrated Modeling for Asset Management held in Kaula Lumpur,
Malaysia, 29-30 March 2004.
Boyun Guo, J.E. Molinard, Gaz de France, R.L. Lee, New Mexico Inst. of Mining and Technology A General Solution of Gas /
Water Coning Problem for Horizontal Wells, paper SPE 25050, presented at the European Petroleum conference held in Cannes,
France, 16-18 November 1992.
Q. Jiang, R.M. Butler, University of Calgary Experimental and Numerical Modeling of Bottom Water Coning to a Horizontal
Well, The Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology, October 1998, Volume 37, No.10.
Suwan Umnuayponwiwat, SPE, and Erdal Ozkan, SPE, Colorado School of Mines, Water and Gas Coning towards FiniteConductivity Horizontal Wells: Cone Buildup and Breakthrough, paper SPE 60308, presented at the 2000 SPE Rocky Mountain
Regional / Low Permeability Reservoir Symposium held in Denver, CO, 12-15 March 2000.
Ozkan, E. and Raghavan, R.: A Breakthrough Time Correlation for Coning toward Horizontal Wells, paper SPE 20964,
presented at Europec 90, The Hague, The Netherlands, Oct. 22-24 1990.
Ozkan, E., Sarica C., and Haci, M.: Influence of Pressure Drop along the Wellbore on Horizontal Well Productivity, SPEJ
(Dec. 1999) 288-301.
Souza, A. L. S, Arbabi, S., and Aziz, K.: A Practical Procedure to Predict Cresting Behavior in Horizontal Wells, paper SPE
39063, presented at the 5th Latin American and Caribbean Petroleum Conference and Exhibition, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Aug. 30
Sept. 3, 1997.
Ozkan, E. and Raghavan, R.: Performance of Horizontal Wells Subject to Bottom Water Drive, SPERE (Aug. 1990) 375-382.
M. Tabatabaei, SPE, Texas A & M University, A. Ghalambor, SPE, University of Luosiana at Lafayette A New Method to
Predict Performance of Horizontal and Multilateral Wells, paper IPTC 13122, presented at IPTC conference held in Doha, Qatar,
7-9 December 2009.
Jiang, Q. and Butler, R. M.: Experimental Study and Numerical Modeling of the Bottom Water Coning Flow to a Horizontal
Well, paper no 95-143 presented the 6th Petroleum Conference of the South Saskatchewan Section, The Petroleum Society of
the CIM, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, Oct. 16-18, 1995.
Robert L. Lee, Shyamal Nath and Mashiur Khan, New mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Water Cone Subsidence
Time of a Horizontal well, paper SPE 29295, presented at presented at the SPE Asia pacific Oil & Gas conference held in Kaula
Lumpur, Malaysia, 20-22 March 1995.

Appendix A
Reservoir Inflow and Horizontal Wellbore Flow coupling model
Assuming Pe is the pressure at the outer boundary of the reservoir and Pw(x) is the pressure along the wellbore that varies
due to frictional and acceleration pressure drop, the well inflow equation can be written as
qs(x) = Js(x)[ Pe - Pw(x)]

.. (A1)

Where qs(x) is the flow in to the well per unit length of the wellbore and Js(x) is the productivity index per unit length of the
well i.e. specific productivity index. The Js(x) varies along the wellbore because of variation in formation permeability, near
wellbore formation damage distribution and anisotropy of the reservoir rock.
Integrating the equation (A1) along the entire wellbore length the total flow rate from the well is,
L

.. (A2)
qs x
Js x Pe
Pw x
Since specific productivity index and wellbore pressure are changing along the wellbore, the analytical solution of equation
(A2) is difficult and very complicated. Therefore to find a solution a numerical method is used as detailed below.

12

SPE 130302

To solve the equation (A2), the horizontal wellbore is divided in to several small segments. The segments are numbered from
1 at the toe of the lateral to n at the heel of the lateral. The total production rate will be the sum of the flow rate from each
segment. Therefore,

.. (A3)

.. (A4)

is the specific productivity of segment number i, and

Where
specific productivity index
is defined as,

is the average wellbore pressure at this segment. The

.. (A5)

and

.. (A6)

Applying the elliptical cone shape model for damage distribution along the horizontal well proposed by Frick and
Economides (1993) ,
can be calculated as,
1

.. (A7)

Here
is the distance between centre of segment number i and toe of the lateral.
The partial penetration skin can be calculated using the equation developed by Babu and Odeh (1989).
/

1
Where,

and

.. (A8)

and

4 and

Besson proposed a slanted well skin correlation from the results of a semi-analytical simulator. In this model the pay
thickness (h) and horizontal well segment length (x) are used to represent the slanted angle (). For isotropic reservoir,

.. (A9)

Where,

.. (A10)

The average wellbore pressure at each segment can be calculated as follows,

1

.. (A11)

The frictional pressure drop over each segment in oil field unit can be expressed as follows,
Laminar Flow Regime
.

.. (A12)

Turbulent Flow Regime

.

.. (A13)
.

Where

and

5.08

10

and

3.83

10

SPE 130302

13

and

and

and

4.09

The acceleration pressure drop over each segment in oil field units can be calculated by the following equations,

Since the pressure drop terms are related to the production rate,
method is used to solve the equation (A4),

.. (A14)
, an iterative approach such as the Newton Raphson

The following algorithms were used to calculate the flow rate from each segment, q(i).
0 .
1. Assume a wellbore pressure at the toe of the lateral,
2. Use the described reservoir / wellbore coupling method to calculate the flow rate, q (1) and pressure drop over
1

1 .
segment number 1,
1 using the following equation.
3. Calculate pressure at the end of segment number 1,
4. Repeat step 2 and 3, moving towards the heel of the lateral to calculate flow arte from each segment, q(i) and the
pressure at the end of each segment,
,
5. Let
is the pressure at the heel and satisfies the following equation,
, then calculated the drawdown in each well segment and total production rate.