Economic evaluation of smart well technology

Abstract

The demand of oil and gas resources is high and the forecasts show a trend for higher requirements in the future. More unconventional resource exploitation along with an increase in the total recovery in current producing fields is required. At this pivotal time the role of emerging technologies is of at most importance. Smart or intelligent well technology is one of the up and coming technologies that have been developed to assist improvements in field development outcome. In this paper a comprehensive review of this technology has been discussed. The possible reservoir environments in which smart well technology could be used and also, the possible benefits that could be realized by utilizing smart well technology has been discussed. The economic impact of smart well technology has been studied thoroughly. Five field cases were used to evaluate the economics of smart well technology in various production environments. Real field data along with best estimate of smart well technology pricings were used in this research. I have used different comparisons between smart well cases and conventional completion to illustrate the economic differences between the different completion scenarios. Based on the research, I have realized that all the smart well cases showed a better economic return than conventional completions. The offshore cases showed a good economic environment for smart well technology. Large onshore developments with smart well technology can also provide a lucrative economic return. These situations can increase the overall economic return and ultimate recovery which will assist in meeting some of the oil demand around the globe.