SPE WVS Paper Number Improving Heavy Oil Well Economics with Hollow Microsphere Cementing Solutions: Case

History
Bob Carver, Yudy Fitryansyah/Chevron; Binyamin Agung KP/Halliburton

Copyright 2011, Society of Petroleum Engineers This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2011 South American Oil and Gas Congress, organized by the SPE Western Venezuela Section, held in Maracaibo, Venezuela, 1821 October 2011.. This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE Western Venezuela Section Program Committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper, as presented, have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Papers presented at SPE meetings are subject to publication review by Editorial Committees of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper for commercial purposes 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 where and by whom the paper was presented. .

Abstract The world energy demand forecast significant growth in heavy oil which constitutes a very large resource base to exploit. Estimated resources of non-conventional oil (heavy oil, bitumen, oil sands and oil shales) are claimed to be as much as seven trillion barrels with technical recoverable quantities varying from 1 trillion to 3 trillion barrels. Some of the heavy oils are too viscous to flow at reservoir conditions. Special production technologies are required to facilitate flow from reservoir to the wellhead which equates to an increase in production and operating costs. Thus, exploration technology is of minor importance, since large resources have been discovered but optimizing production technology is important. Heavy oils are usually found at relatively shallow depths that are structurally faulted and in unconsolidated sands. This type of formation imposes lost circulation problems during drilling and completion especially during cementing. Since the common production method of heavy oil resources is steam injection, full steam resistance cement sheath integrity up to the surface is desired. In Duri, Indonesia, conventional treatments with LCM pills and or cement plugs prior to primary cementing have proved very costly due to the associated rig time and materials. Moreover, most of these troublesome wells will have no cement returns to the surface during the cementing process, and as a consequence show poor bonding or even free pipe during evaluation. A High-Strength Low Density (HSLD) Cement System was suggested for increasing primary cementing success in steam injected low fracture gradient areas. Hollow Microsphere Cement System is HSLD acknowledged as a feasible solution because conventional cement design definitely loses to the formation. After optimizing low density high strength cement design in lab with reliable results, execution succeeded in addressing lost circulation in primary cementing even more reduction in remediation costs. This paper presents development background and process to obtain optimum solution to overcome the lost-circulation in Duri, Indonesia, including case-history study, optimizing cement job design using software, lab test result, slurry design with economic analysis, and cement bond evaluation that proven give the operator value added. Introduction Shallow-well Duri field (Fig. 1), onshore drilling in the Riau Province of central Sumatra-Indonesia is primarily in a development phase at this stage for the operating company. Steam-injected area, Duri field were consists of producer wells, injector wells, observation wells, and disposal wells. Structurally, the Duri field is faulted; asymmetric anticlines with the degree of complexity increasing westward near the Sebanga fault that bounds the field. Duri reservoirs occur in sands of Duri, Bekasap, and Bangko formation at drill depth from about 300 ft to about 750 ft at the water oil contact while the steam injector wells and temperature offset wells usually drill to 800 ft depth. All of them were supported by the disposal well located in deep sand area reached 1600 ft depth. The reservoirs in Duri divided into three major groups; the Rindu, the Pertama/Kedua, and the Baji/Jaga/Dalam. The Rindu is the shallowest interval produced in Duri. The deepest drive intervals are the Baji, Jaga and Dalam sands. The oil accumulations in these deeper sands are limited to structurally highest parts of the anticlines in the south end of the field. The Baji and Jaga sometimes form a single reservoir unit of very high permeability. The main steamdrive intervals in DSF are the Pertama and Kedua sands. Both sands are unconsolidated and similar in many fluid and rock properties, with the Kedua tending to be thinner with lower net-to-gross ratios, oil saturations, and permeability. Besides the injector well, Operator also drilled Temperature Offset Well in this depth of formation for monitoring purposes. Slurry fracture injection for waste solids disposal were also being develop in Duri area for the large volumes of sand produced along with heavy oil in the production process waste. The result from selection screening of subsurface is injection formation target in the bottom Kedua, Baji/Jaga/Dalam, and Menggala sands since located in deep sand and have good sands permeability, good injectivity, good sand continuity moreover big reservoir volume. The Duri 240 sand pore pressure ramps slowly from 6.52 lb/gal close to surface to 10.26 lb/gal at the depth of 180 ft. A rapid pressure ramp is seen at the Rindu formation from 300 ft to 380 ft, widely range in 7.45 lb/gal reach to 13.65 lb/gal. The bottom hole pre-steam reservoir static temperature is range from 100F to 120F with average permeability around 1500 md. Even fracture integrity test result is found at 0.75 psi/ft but high permeability zone also found at the bottom Pertama from 3500 md to 7000 md with potential steam breakthrough up to 250F.

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Considering the fractured and high permeability in unconsolidated sand formation, lost circulation problem are commonly found after penetrating the Pertama/Kedua sands. Hence, injector well, temperature offset well and disposal well are potentially exposed to the lost circulation problem but not limited to the Rindu producer well when the fracture crossed or located near the target zone. Operator decide to blind drill through sands to casing point or till TD since there are no fluid return to surface during drilling the wells. After reach the target depth, amount of concentration LCM pills is usually spotted and squeezed to the formation along the open hole to get certain pressure (50 psi). When the well has been in static condition, then the troublesome wells are cured with the conventional 15.8 lb/gal cement plug loss. The challenge is that there is a considerable amount of uncertainty in time regarding plug loss failure repetitions, waiting on cement, and drill out cement. This time uncertainty is affected the daily rig operation and materials usage which both of them are contribute to the cost overruns. The production well is usually programmed to take 4 days to drill at an approved cost of approximately quarter million US$. Should problems be encountered, the cost overruns can be as much as 25% of the approved cost. It is getting worse since the primary cementing failed to get return to surface and having poor cement bonding evaluation. The additional cost for asset team should be captured while the well will have remedial job. This condition will be severe for other well with deeper penetrating through Pertama/Kedua to Baji/Jaga/Dalam such as Injector well, temperature offset well and disposal well suffered more than 30% overruns cost. This paper presents a cementing case history where special non-foamed hollow microsphere cement with simple operational was used to control cost overrun when the well encountered an unexpected lost difficulty and provide minimum 10% saving cost.

Case-Study Background Disposal well (Fig. 2) was lying on Area 13-Duri Field with injection formation target at Kedua, Baji/Jaga/Dalam, and Menggala. The 13-3/8 inch Surface casing set at 199 ft depth covered the Duri 240 sand formations. While drilling 12-1/4 inch Intermediate hole from 209849 ft through Rindu/Pertama sands formation, it got 1.8 BPH initial lost circulations. After finished run logging under lost conditions, the well was spotted with 50 bbls of 120 PPB LCM pill several times, squeezed to get LCM screen out until the well condition was static. Job Challenge The cement job now not only had to cover the 12-1/4 inch hole section under lost conditions, but also provide long-term zonal isolation for disposal well. It also has been predicted that when we penetrate the main target at the next production section around 1400 ft, the same lost circulation problem will occurred since there is possibility fault occur along the proposed wellbore. Software Simulation The fracture gradient across the Pertama/Kedua sequences was approximately 0.45 psi/ft. KCL polymer mud weighing 8.7 lb/gal and treated with lost circulation material was used for drilling the section. It was observed from past cementing job, the formation could sometimes sustain a full column of 12.5 lb/gal spacer-scavenger and mostly the lost circulation occur when 15.8 lb/gal cement slurry induced into the formation. Some of the case-history taken from Area 12 North Duri Development where the well was in static condition after it has been cured by LCM pill and/or the several plug jobs, the cement return during cementing job is only 12.5 13 lb/gal. Analysis of software shown us that to achieve effective zonal isolation, it was necessary to ensure reducing the cement column hydrostatic inside the well. We simulated the Rindu formation production job into the software with the assumption that the fracture gradient is 0.75 psi/ft and no gas potential flow hazard will encounter. Within 11 lb/gal scavenger as spacer followed by 15.8 lb/gal regular tail slurry exceed fracture gradient limit (Fig. 4). The Pertama/Kedua formation indicated lower fracture gradient as below 0.65 psi/ft (Fig. 6) with severe lost circulation possibility. Some lost cases even happened during pump tail cement slurry. This fact supported by the historical data that most of the time we already got total loss when pumped displacement fluid and the rest of them were suffers the same loss at the start of pumping tail cement slurry. Cement-Slurry Design Operator has been decided not to cure the loss using cement plug but also didnt want to take no cement return risk during cementing using 15.8 lb/gal regular cement slurry. Excessive volume of 15.8 lb/gal regular cement slurry pumped would definitely not solve the problem also. It was realized that the slurry weight could be the variable to modify with. (1) Water Extended. However, simple common light weight slurry with water-extender additives such as bentonite, silicalite or microblock will be enough to get slurry density below 13 lb/gal. Since for the most part these water-extending additives are inexpensive and water is not commonly included into the cementing charge, slurry designs from this class will normally generate cementing job with lowest cost. While having the benefit of applying the least expensive slurries on the market, operator should understand that this slurry should also have the lowest level of the strength performance and stability slurry issue. (2) Foam. The second option for adjusting the slurry weight is the injection of a gaseous phase into the slurry with Nitrogen as the most common gas used to foam the cement. Foaming cement slurry has benefits such as increased elasticity of the set cement, increased compressibility of the liquid cement and provision of the operator ability to easily change the design as well or the job conditions change. While these benefits are consider substantial, one should understand that to do a foam cementing job, additional experienced personnel, equipment, and also access to nitrogen are required.

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(3) Microspheres. The third methodology for density reduction of the oilwell slurries is through the addition of low specific-gravity microspheres. When used, microspheres are typically bulk-blended with the dry cement powder. The hollow, pozzlanic spheres material is the most commonly used because of it least expensive, easy to dry-blend and very simple operation in job execution. Hollow microspheres slurry can have the highest strength-ratio and lowest permeability of any cement design, also rapid compressive strength development is beneficial since reducing the WOC times when combine with the proper strength enhancer, even it can withstand the temperature of the well to 400F with pressure limitation of 6,000 psi. Considerably typical Duri field conditions and job manner, hollow microspheres solution is leading the head counts amount of the advantages. (1) Steam Area Injection. Most of the wells in Duri field are commonly steamed or at least having steam break through up to 350F. Hollow microspheres provide steam resistance strength and achieve relatively final high compressive strength. (2) Shallow well. In production well, after completing the production casing, it will continue with open hole gravel pack sand completion. Rapid early WOC time before drilling the shoe track are highly recommend to safe the rig cost as the trip in and out hole is consider at minimum time. It also happens at intermediate section of injector, observation, and disposal well before continues drilling the production section. (3) High frequency number of job. With average 18 20 wells drilled per month, the logistic of materials will become an issue. Uncertainties of lost circulation make the prediction of material logistic even challenging. Moreover, the availability and reliability of equipment will also become a question as the utility rate is relatively high in this area. Availability materials and simplicity of the operation address the barriers. Widely spread stock in region with relatively short lead time to order are the valuable advantages for hollow microspheres materials while the same standard equipment requirement will be another great addition of value. (4) Minimum preparation time. While only four hours preparation time stated on contract, the dry-blend of hollow microspheres is usually achieved at two or maximum three hours dry-blend time consumption. It has been reduced recently since the bulk plant operators get used to with the operation work pace. Job Design-Intermediate Casing Based on the historical offset well data, we were utilizing 300% excess theoretical to address excessive cement needs of high permeability and low fracture gradient formation characteristic but confirmed that we wouldnt have any gas hazard potential. While operator found partial loss while drilling, it has been decided to use 12.5 lb/gal hollow-microspheres cement system (Table. 1), be of density that could be run across weak zones (Fig. 8). The surface sample was set at proper manner which it should be reached 500 psi at around 9 hours after cement in place (Fig. 15). Evaluation will be performed using USIT to get better interpretation of cement bond log evaluation (Fig. 10). We got 18 bbls; 12.5 lb/gal full cement return to surface. Job Design-Production Casing As it has been predicted before, lost found during penetrate 8-1/2 inch production section at 1410 ft. Initial partial loss was reported at 9 BPH, while decision made to spot LCM up to 120 PPB for curing the situation. As well predicted, in this production section the pore pressure seem normal without having gas flow potential. LOT data from the offset well (Fig. 3) also shown us leak off pressure at 211 psi using 8.8 lb/gal mud in the depth of 912 ft. considering the fracture gradient only 0.68 psi/ft, 12.5 lb/gal HSLD run to seal the 8-1/2 production section. This precious input data from LOT was simulated in our software to ensure the ECD not exceed the limitation (Fig. 11). Using the same amount excess theoretical with Intermediate Casing at 300%, success point cement return to surface was achieve. We got 13 bbls; 12.5 lb/gal cement return. Job Execution The following is a list of detail regarding the job execution. See Fig. 9 and Fig. 11 for the actual job chart. Sandwich dry blend system for hollow microsphere material was successfully done, resulting in homogeny blending and in timely manner. It was proven in the density margin both for Intermediate (Fig. 9) and Production Job (Fig. 11) within 0.2 lb/gal margin along pumping. A scavenger spacer that provided high shear rates under varying temperature was used to help better mud removal. It was essential to determine 10 minutes contact time for optimum spacer volume. The spacer was followed by 12.5 lb/gal hollow microsphere cement system with average rate at 3 bpm. Displacement fluid pumped through the casing with carefully observation on pump rate since the possibility of getting lost circulation still high. Cement return to surface both for intermediate & production section were indicated proper evaluation of the hole excess at 300% theoretical. Conclusions Cementing the well in cost effective manner and the same time providing a cement sheath that can help ensure long term zonal isolation during the life of the well are the major concerns for drilling and completing the well The HSLD Cement design was a 12.5 lb/gal lightweight slurry and able to provide full annular fill-up to the surface in high permeability and low fracture gradient zone.

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The optimized cement design provided adequate compressive strength in bottom hole static temperature (Fig. 14) even in higher temperature (Fig. 15) if the steam comes break through. HSLD cement was the choice in this case study because of its ability to provide high strength low density cement, achieving better zonal isolation with the improved design saved the project from economic failure.

References 1. Dusseault, M. B.: Comparing Venezuelan and Canadian Heavy Oil and Tar Sands, paper 2001-061 presented at the Petroleum Societys Canadian International Conference 2001, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, June 12 14, 2001. 2. Gael, B. T., Gross, S. J., and McNaboe, G. J.: Development Planning and Reservoir In The Duri Steamflood, paper SPE 29668 presented at the Western Regional Meeting, Bakersfield, CA, USA, 8 10 March 1995. 3. Kulakofsky, D. et al.: Lightweight Cementing Solutions: A Novel Concept Utilizes Field Case Histories, 4. Kulakofsky, D. et al.: New Ultra-lightweight Cementing Technology Proven with Case Studies, Combines Benefits of Current Leading Technologies, paper SPE 92970 presented at the 2005 SPE Middle East Oil and Gas Show and Conference, Bahrain, 12-15 March.

Table. 1 Pumping Schedule Intermediate Casing Job

Table. 2 Pumping Schedule Production Casing Job

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Fig. 1 Well Schematic 4G-38Z Disposal Well

Fig. 2 Duri Field Area

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Fig. 3 Actual Leak Off Test Intermediate Section 4G-38Z

ECD exceed fracture gradient while pumping displacement

Fig. 4 ECD at Fracture Zone Typical Rindu Formation

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Fig. 5 Estimate Fluid Position when Lost Occurred at Rindu Formation

ECD exceed fracture gradient while pumping tail slurry

Fig. 6 ECD at Fracture Zone Typical Pertama/Kedua Formation

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Fig. 7 Estimate Fluid Position when Lost Occurred at Pertama/Kedua Formation

Fig. 8 ECD at Intermediate Section 4G-38Z Fracture Zone

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Fig. 9 Actual Job Chart of Intermediate Casing Job at 4G-38Z

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Fig. 10 Cement Bond Evaluation of Intermediate Casing Job at 4G-38Z

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Fig. 11 ECD at Production Section 4G-38Z Fracture Zone

Fig. 12 Actual Job Chart of Production Casing Job at 4G-38Z

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Fig. 13 Cement Bond Evaluation of Production Casing Job at 4G-38Z

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Fig. 14 Crush Test for 24 hours at High Temperature (300 F)

Fig. 15 Compressive Strength Profile at BHST