Summary
Oil productivity from Mumbai High field, an offshore multilayered carbonate reservoir, increased significantly through the implementation of a major redevelopment program. Geoscientific information available from approximately 700 exploratory and develop- ment wells drilled in the field during nearly 25 years was incorporated during geological and reservoir simulation modeling of the field. High-technology drilling (viz. horizontal/multilaterals for the new development wells) was adopted on field scale to effectively address typical complexity of the layered carbonate reservoirs. Since the commencement of the project in 2000, approximately 140 new wells were drilled, mostly with horizontal and multilateral drainholes. Besides these, more than 70 suboptimal producers were also converted as horizontal sidetracks under brownfield development. The horizontal sidetracks were drilled as long-drift sidetrack (LDST), extended-reach drilling (ERD), LDST-ERD, short-drift sidetrack (SDST), and medium-radius drainhole (MRDH) types of wells through the application of innovative and emerging drilling technologies with nondamaging drilling fluids, whipstocks to kick off sidetrack wells, rotary-steering systems, and expandable tubulars to complete horizontal sidetracks in lower layers. With the implementation of this project, the declining trend was fully arrested and a significant upward trend in production has been established.
Introduction
The field redevelopment process requires the intergration of reservoir-development strategies, facility options, and drilling and production philosophies to maximize oil and gas recovery from a matured field. A significant number of case studies are available on mature field revitalization using a multidisciplinary team concept, exhaustive geo-scientific data analysis, and new drilling technologies (Chedid and Colmenares 2002; Clark et al. 2000; Dollens et al. 1999; Kinchen et al. 2001). Advancements in drilling and completion technology have enabled construction of horizontal wells with longer wellbores, more-complex well geometry, and sophisticated completion designs. Horizontal wells provide an effective method to produce bypassed oil from matured fields. In the early 1980s, this technology was in the development stage and was used in limited applications. By the 1990s, the technology had matured, and its acceptance in the industry had increased significantly. Performance of horizontal/multilateral wells, risk assessment of horizontal-well productivity and comparison of horizontal- and vertical-well performance in different fields is available in literature (Babu and Aziz 1989; Brekke and Thompson 1996; Economides et al. 1989; Joshi 1987; Joshi and Ding 1995; Mukherjee and Economides 1991; Norris et al. 1991; Vij et al. 1998).
A significant number of horizontal/multilateral development wells were drilled as a part of redevelopment of Mumbai High, a matured multilayered carbonate offshore field in Western India. The details of new technologies applied and performance of these new high-technology wells are presented in this paper. Besides comparison of well productivity of horizontal and conventional sidetrack wells, this paper presents some technical issues faced.
