IPTC-20049-Abstract

Perforations Redefined: Measurements while Perforating using Digital

Slickline

Mohamed Mohamed Elkordy, Bader Taqi Akbar, Milan Kumar Patra, AbdulSamad Ahmad, Abdullah Abu Eida,
Nasser Al Azmi, and AbdulAziz Dashti, Kuwait Oil Company; Alberto Abouganem Stephens, Hazim Ayyad, Khaled
Abdulrahim, Adil Al Busaidy, and Guillermo Luna Hernandez, Schlumberger; Wahiba Grabssi, Kuwait Oil Company

Copyright 2020, International Petroleum Technology Conference

This paper was prepared for presentation at the International Petroleum Technology Conference held in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, 13 – 15 January 2020.

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Abstract
To reactivate wells that are not flowing, a common solution is to perforate any bypassed zone to bring
the wells back to operation. If the completion does not allow for optimal interventions, i.e. running the
perforating gun sized for the target interval, the consequences of a thru-tubing intervention must be evaluated
based on cost, probability of success, risk and whether the potential results and the time savings of a rig
are justifiable.
In a well in Minagish Field of Kuwait, a combination of thru-tubing technologies was deployed for
perforating a bypassed zone, reducing the cost of a rig workover, and maximizing the potential results.
The conveyance method was selected in consideration of well access, cost, provision of positive depth
correlation, and the capability to deploy the perforating guns thru tubing. Second, the perforating system
was modeled with the reservoir parameters for its impact on well productivity. After the perforation
parameters were obtained, the application of post-perforating dynamic underbalance was proposed to clean
the perforations and reduce skin. Downhole measurements while perforating was combined with all the
runs, including gamma ray, collar locator, pressure, temperature. A fast gauge was run in memory mode
with the post perforating underbalance guns.
The perforating operation was performed with a suite of measurements conveyed with digital slickline,
enabling a cost-effective, informed intervention that reduced the operator’s cost by USD 288,000 over a
conventional rig-based operation. The combination of extra-deep penetrating shaped charges loaded a 2-1/8-
in phased exposed carrier perforating guns system and the post-perforating cleanup system, restoring the
well to a production of 1,500bbl/d.
The application of digital slickline that provided downhole measurement while perforating was deployed
for the first time in Kuwait. The use of productivity modeling for perforating proved to be a successful
metric for decision making when selecting this intervention methodology. This approach saved the operator
time and cost while cutting risks and maximizing the potential production restoration.
2 IPTC-20049-Abstract

Overview about Minagish Field

The Minagish reservoir is an oil-bearing carbonate in the Minagish, Umm-Gudair and Burgan fields in
Kuwait. It was discovered in 1958. The field hold hydrocarbons in six major reservoirs ranging in age from
Early Jurassic to Late Cretaceous. The principal reservoir is the Lower Cretaceous Middle Minagish Oolite
(MMO), which contribute >80% of the fields production. [1][2].
The Minagish Field is located in the Arabian Basin in the southwestern part of Kuwait in onshore position.
It measures 16 km long and 8 km wide, covering an area of about 135 km². The structure of the field is north-
south elongated asymmetrical anticline. Four major fault orientations have E-W, N-S, NW-SE, and NE-
SW trends. Three post-depositional tectonic events are related to late Turonian, Campanian, and Oligocene
times.

Figure 1—Geographical location of the Minagish field, and the MMO reservoir boundaries within the field.

Many of the wells in the Minagish fields have switched to using artificial lift techniques, eg. electro-
submersible pumps (ESP). Some of the reasons for using artificial lift methods are the pressure decline
on the field and the increased water cut, which in turn create liquid-loading issues that are not possible to
sustain with natural production.
Prior to the installation of an ESP, an acid soak technique had been utilized to clean the perforation
tunnels and reduce the skin, thus increasing the ESP inlet pressure of the wells. An alternative to acid wash
is to perform perforation tunnels cleanup with underbalance guns. This saves the acid wash costs and, in
some instances, postpones the need for an ESP, allowing the prioritization of the workover schedule and
ESP installation. Furthermore, some wells are cleaned with underbalance guns, eliminating the need for an
ESP for some time, which in turn increases the efficiency of the scheduling and prioritization of workover
rig activity.

Well_1 production history

Well_1 was put into production in 1994. A single zone of 120-ft interval was perforated. At its peak, the
production rate averaged 4,000 bbl/d with no water production. In 2016, the well started producing water,
increasing the water cut with time. From April 2018 to August 2018, the well started to rapidly decline, and
by December 2018, the well had ceased production.
IPTC-20049-Abstract 3

Figure 2—Production Profile Well_1

The well was originally planned for ESP installation to restore the production. But due to unavailability
of the pump, it was considered the alternative of rigless intervention to activate the well. The costs and risks
of a rigless intervention were to be assessed prior to committing to rigless deployment.

Challenges on intervention: workover vs thru-tubing cost

There are four main criteria to be evaluated when a well intervention is planned: cost of the intervention
methodology, probability of success of such intervention, risks associated with the method, and whether the
potential results make the well worth intervention. Rigless intervention is the first consideration when costs
are of concern, but it limits the options of services that can be conveyed due to the inherent access restrictions
in the tubing. These limitations increase the risk profile of the operation in terms of potential success.
Rigless interventions can be grouped in three main techniques: wireline and slickline, coiled tubing, and
workover rig. These techniques allow access to live wells with pressure at the wellhead and performance
in different operations. Some of them are common to all techniques, and some of them are specific to the
technique.

Rigless intervention assessment

Understanding the well parameters and the reservoir potential is of utmost importance for a good production
strategy. For this field, the two main methods of producing a well are perforations or electro submersible
pumps (ESP). For candidacy for perforations or ESP, the well data is input in a nodal analysis engine to
forecast its productivity. For a nodal analysis engine to help the production strategy, it needs reservoir
inputs that are derived from openhole data, predictive modeling, production and transient testing, and other
methodologies. For the objective of this paper, the source of the data is not discussed, but its application
into the nodal analysis is.
For Well_1 we had production history of the perforations open before. By use of the openhole data and
match to the production data in the nodal analysis engine, we could confirm the parameters of the reservoir
in a simulation environment, for example, its permeability that matches openhole data. The new set of
perforations in Well_1 were above the previously open zones, hence an extrapolation of such parameters
was done to the upper interval. To note is that the previous perforated zones were acid washed.
The nodal engine was fed with perforation data and predicted skin values from a perforating analysis tool.
The perforating analysis tool takes the rock and fluid parameters combined with the perforating guns system
parameters and predicts with a coarse reservoir engine the productivity that diverse perforating strategies
could have. The results of this perforating analysis tool are comparative between systems because they are
downhole results, not including tubing and other well construction details that might change the flow rates
4 IPTC-20049-Abstract

Figure 3—Perforation design is not a standalone process, but the

result of the analysis of inputs from logs and reservoir models

The well was completed with 3.5-in tubing. This created a substantial restriction that requires the
deployment of small OD perforating guns, which added additional risks due to performance of small guns
in large sized casings. Initial simulations were performed with 2-in HSD guns, loaded at 6 shots per foot
(spf) with deep penetrating charges. The results were not positive, and an alternative was proposed.
Exposed capsule guns of size 2.125-in for thru tubing applications are available with higher performance
charges than the 2.0-in HSD guns, with the exposed system disadvantage of maximum length that
can be conveyed at one time. The gun selection would provide the best formation penetration for the
existing wellbore restriction, however this penetration is wasted if the perforation tunnels are blocked with
perforation debris and if the rock surrounding the tunnels is damaged by the perforation event, as is always
the case. Stand alone dynamic underbalance was a solution to this issue as it is proven to clean perforation
tunnels and produce a low skin perforation tunnel, and it has the lowest operational cost when compared with
acid jobs. Stand alone dynamic underbalance technology involves running implosion chambers, designed
on a well by well basis to enhance productivity or injectivity. Dynamic underbalance exposes the perforation
tunnels to an instantaneous low pressure which results in sharp drawdown, if the fluid mobility is high
enough, fluids flow at such a rate into the borehole that they erode the weaker crushed material and debris
in the perforation tunnels and suck them into the borehole. This removal of the crushed zone and debris
should improve the wells performance by reducing the near wellbore pressure drop, skin [13]. Subsequently,
modeling and comparing the effectiveness of shooting exposed capsule guns, with a posterior tunnel cleanup
with dynamic underbalance was performed. The dynamic underbalance guns would be the 2.0-in HSD guns,
loaded only with dynamic underbalance charges. These charges work by creating an entry point for the
wellbore fluids to be admitted into the gun, creating a vacuuming effect in front of the perforations. [8][9]
The dynamic underbalance technique is cost efficient on the scenario modeled compared with the
traditional acid wash technique. As per the model, the skin reduction by cleanup would be large enough to
justify the technique when compared to that of acid washing.
However, the perforating model does not account for the tubing on the wellbore, the outflow curve, and
the effect of this skin is not yet of use for the decision-making process.
IPTC-20049-Abstract 5

Figure 4—Initial comparison of relative performance between

thru-tubing perforation with and without dynamic underbalance cleanup.

By analyzing the results of the nodal analysis engine, a decision to perforate or ESP could be made, and
for well Well_1 it was highlighted into the results that the thru-tubing perforation strategy by itself could not
deliver production. Then comparing the model to that of a dynamic underbalance cleanup run to reduce the
skin, it was determined that the well could produce a considerable rate. Due to this result from the analysis,
economics come into place to assess whether a temporary production schedule is economical vs keeping
the well shut-in until a rig and ESP are available

Figure 5—Nodal analysis with two operating points: conventional thru-tubing perforation with
expected skin ~11, and the simulated skin of ~1 after dynamic underbalance cleanup runs.

The dynamic underbalance technique is cost efficient on the scenario modeled compared with the
traditional acid wash technique. As per the model, the skin reduction by cleanup would be large enough to
justify the technique when compared to that of acid washing.
If the operation would be done with two series of perforating runs with deep penetrating guns followed by
underbalance cleanup guns, the cost might quickly exceed the NPV thresholds. For lowering the intervention
costs, the proposed solution was to perforate with a slickline setup, which would create a smaller footprint
and require less crew than a conventional eline setup.
6 IPTC-20049-Abstract

Selection of digital slickline as a conveyance method

A digital slickline solution was selected for the capability of correlate on depth with gamma ray and CCL in
realtime and to shot on command from surface [5][6][7]. The costs of this operation were more economical
than the eline equivalent and much faster to RIH and POOH, further accelerating the well production.
Conventional eline cables used on this field were alloyed for H2S environments. These cables can only
be deployed to a max 6,000 ft per hour line speed due to the alloy armors torque building. With a digital
slickline solution, the RIH speeds can be much greater.
The advantages to using digital slickline are:

• Smaller footprint and crew size, directly impacting cost of the deployment

• Shoot confirmation (downhole tension and shock)

• Monitoring downhole pressure and temperature

• Safety arm gun, (RF-safe detonators, pressure safety switch, safety fuse, and fire redundancy)

• Running speed limited by winch, not by cable limits

Job execution
The objective of the job was to perform additional perforations and post-perforating cleanup. Due to the
exposed guns length limitations, a total of nine perforating runs with 6 spf exposed spiral capsule guns were
performed. The RIH/POOH speeds were in the range of 12,000-16,000 fph, more than double the speed
achieved with an alloy eline cable. After the perforating runs, an additional three runs were performed with
post perforating cleanup guns.
Additionally, the downhole measurements available with the digital slickline suite recorded in realtime
the perforation events, enabling the realtime monitoring of the perforation performance.
The intervention operations were performed efficiently and with minimal footprint on the location.
A misrun occurred during one of the runs, but because of the downhole monitoring capabilities of the
digital slickline tools, it was promptly identified. The recovery time was short, allowing the resumption of
operations in less time that a conventional run. For every exposed gun and cleanup gun, shock detection
was monitored downhole and immediate feedback provided to the logging engineer. The shock detection
is the proxy for a successful detonation.
IPTC-20049-Abstract 7

Figure 6—Time plot showing the downhole shot measurement, in g-force acceleration
units. The gun received an acceleration of more than 300g in the upward direction.

One of the most interesting observations on the execution of the job was to see the fluid level changes
with each gun being run. In Figure 7, the plot displays the run-in-hole status of the well with the pressure
measurement. The pressure was used for density using a derivative function. The second track from the
left is the first gun being lowered into the well. This was the status after the coiled tubing N2 lift attempt.
The fluid column was not close to surface. As perforating runs are shot, the fluid level increases, as the
successive perforations open more contact to the reservoir. However, the pressure drop at the perforation
tunnel (skin) was high enough that even after 90 ft of additional interval opened, the fluid level would not
increase and wHP remained 0 psi. After the first 40-ft cleanup run, the well filled with oil, pressurizing the
well to 300 psi and pushing the water to the bottom of the perforations. Two more runs of cleanup guns
were performed to complete the interval.
8 IPTC-20049-Abstract

Figure 7—Fluid level changes with each perforating gun, as measured downhole in each perforating run with digital
slickline. To note is that ythe well gets pressurized and filled with oil only after the first underbalance gun is fired, with
the downhole measurements immediately confirming cleanup effectiveness. The sensor did not record in two of the runs.

The downhole fast gauge measurement showed a dynamic underbalance close to the predicted one, which
confirmed the model and its inputs were positively confirming the underbalance model calculations.

Figure 8—Dynamic underbalance measurement from the downhole fast gauge. Note that resembles that of Figure 3.

Results and Analysis of model

The results of the intervention thru tubing with exposed capsule guns followed by cleanup guns were well
received: A total fluid output of 1783bbls with 26% water cut was initially produced, with over 4 months
before needing to be shutin, excedding 180,000 bbls of oil produced over this period.
IPTC-20049-Abstract 9

Figure 9—Production profile after the perforating cleanup rigless intervention. The well produced an approximate total
of 180,000 barrels of oil before it had to be shut down. Later in time the well wasa workover and an ESP was installed.

The model that was built to assess the economical validation of the intervention proved to be a valuable
tool for decision making. The deployment of the intervention with digital slickline further reduced costs
and provided realtime insight on the effectiveness of the intervention.

Conclusions
The results of this intervention and its merits achieved the desired objective of implementing the digital
slickline and dynamic underbalance technologies, and the oil production was successfully restored without
the need of utilizing a Workover Rig. Cost-wise, the job was a great accomplishment comparing to other
conventional practices (stimulation, artificial lift installation… etc.), and the lost production time was
minimized.
By incorporating all the data available data for a given well, a basic framework to build a perforating
model is possible to be created. This is a tool of inmense value during the prioritization of interventions and
workover, aiding the candidate selection. The downhole measurements during perforation gave important
insight and proof of the dynamic underbalance effects for cleaning and optimizing the perforations, and
digital slickline conveyance proved to be efficient, safe, and able to display realtime data that aid the operator
in taking decisions.

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