Reactivation of Offshore Marginal Field by Production Optimization

ABSTRACT

One of many problems faced by the Indonesian oil and gas industry these days is the decreasing of oil and gas reserves. The addition of oil and gas reserves through EOR projects or finding new exploration often encounter difficulties, especially in terms of the lengthy time required for preparation and heavy funding. In addition, many old oil and gas fields are closed because they are no longer economical. However, marginal fields still have remaining reserves and the potential for production.
Field LA is an offshore field located in block TD, West Papua, Indonesia. It was discovered in 1975 and had been producing since 2006. From the initial data, this field was expected to produce up to 4.32 MMBO. Field LA was closed in 2010 with the last oil production around 1250 BOPD from 1 well. The remaining reserves and production profile LA became unattractive for contractors due to high cost for the rental of offshore production facilities (FPSO) and well services.
The artificial lift method is used by utilizing gas lift system already installed on wells and production facilities. With this method, the daily production of LA field can be increased and thus become economically attractive for the contractors to re-activate the field. In addition, the use of gas lift to minimize pressure loss along the wellbore can extend the life of the well and increase the cumulative recoverable reserves.
The use of the gas lift method will potentially increase the remaining reserve from 0.160 MMBO to about 0.7 MMBO. The method will also prolong the potential life of the field from 6 months to 18 months. From the results of the subsurface evaluation of subsurface and production forecasts, the economics of field “LA” re-activation becomes quite attractive with break even oil price at USD 85/bbl.