SPE-188364-MS

An Automated Approach to Well Design: Using a Reservoir Simulator and

Nodal Analysis

Zainub Noor, Vitaly Khoriakov, and Ian Boisvert, Halliburton, Landmark

Copyright 2017, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference held in Abu Dhabi, UAE, 13-16 November 2017.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
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Abstract
Reservoir simulation is becoming increasingly complex because of more advanced wells in the fields,
including intelligent and multilateral wells. Advanced completions are also evolving to increase recovery
efficiencies. This increasing complexity presents two difficulties, which include the design of advanced
completions within reservoir simulators and increased simulation runtime. To describe a well in a reservoir
model, a reservoir engineer typically defines a network of hundreds of nodes using keywords and specifies
properties for each node. This is a cumbersome and error-prone process. Additionally, detailed well models
can slow down reservoir simulation and often cause poor convergence.
A new iterative round-trip approach has been implemented, in which an engineer imports an initial
reservoir model into a nodal analysis simulator that models flow from the reservoir through complex
completions to the wellhead. The simulator accurately models well production in steady state and designs
completion strings in detail. After the design is complete, the nodal analysis simulator converts the well
model into reservoir simulator keywords that are imported into full-scale simulations for transient analysis.
Using this method, reservoir simulators can also model multiple annuli, which was not feasible
previously. Highly detailed well models of several thousand nodes that accurately describe completion
strings can be generated automatically.
Reservoir engineers typically do not possess complex knowledge of well design because this is
usually performed by completion/production engineers, who seldom have access to a reservoir simulator.
Consequently, they have a limited ability to experiment with different well designs. This paper presents
an approach that helps facilitate reservoir and production engineer collaboration, thus helping enable fine-
tuning of final completion designs to maximize production, prevent early water/gas breakthrough, and
increase overall recovery. This paper describes the application of the new process in an openhole well and
presents various completion designs of the same well.

Introduction
Advanced well completions are increasingly installed to mitigate risks of sand production, early water or
gas breakthrough, help improve sweep efficiency, and control injection distribution. The design process
considers many factors that can affect well profitability, such as features and uncertainties of the formation,
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expected productive life of the well, and capital and operational costs of surface facilities. Consideration
of these factors necessitates a multidisciplinary team, and the design process results depend heavily on
numerical simulation and detailed technical analysis of the simulation results.
A number of studies (Thornton 2016; Masoudi et al. 2015; Least et al. 2013) report the results of advanced
well completion designs. Many of these studies compare the behavior of a well completed with autonomous
inflow control devices (AICDs) to the same well completed with screens or nozzle inflow control devices
(ICDs). The studies highlight the advantages of AICDs, with respect to some set of metrics [i.e., total oil
production, total water production, water/oil ratio (WOR), etc.]. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate
modern practices and document challenges associated with the advanced completions design process.
The following factors should be accounted for during well completion design:

• Total fluid recovery vs. capital costs of completion

• Lift requirements

• Uncertainty in formation properties

• Fluid control while injecting

• Ability of surface facilities to manage produced water and gas

The proposed workflow addresses these concerns using a dynamic reservoir model, a steady-state
wellbore model, and an economics model. The dynamic reservoir model simulates the behavior of the
reservoir fluids during an extended time horizon, particularly with respect to breakthrough and estimated
ultimate recovery (EUR). The model includes a description of the well and completions in segmented form
so that different completion strategies can be compared. The steady-state wellbore model is used to establish
well compartmentalization for design of well completions to simulate and compare different completion
scenarios and evaluate fluid control in the wellbore at different rates. It uses a rigorous hydraulics model
and a reservoir proxy to simulate well production. The economics model evaluates and compares capital
and operating costs of the completion scenarios.
The proposed approach is unique in that data from the reservoir and nodal analysis simulators are shared
to produce a round-trip workflow. Calculated reservoir properties from the reservoir simulator are imported
directly into the nodal analysis simulator and used to produce the reservoir inflow proxy that is used
during well simulation. The completion design developed in the nodal analysis simulator is automatically
translated into a segmented well description imported directly into the input deck of the reservoir simulator.
Sharing data directly between the simulators helps increase productivity, reduces transposition errors in
synchronizing models, and helps ensure that models are current.
Hudson et al. (2011) report a convergence in scope between reservoir and nodal analysis simulators.
Reservoir simulators are able to model and simulate complex completion designs in wells, while nodal
analysis simulators push into the domain of reservoir simulation in areas, such as hydraulic fracture
simulation. While there is overlap between the capabilities of the two simulator types, the proposed
workflow attempts to leverage the following strengths of each simulator:

• The dynamic reservoir simulator’s ability to simulate well production over an extended time
horizon and interaction of wells in a reservoir
• The nodal analysis simulator’s ease of developing and modifying completion design and
investigating well production capability
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Proposed Well Completion Design Workflow

The starting point for the workflow is a validated reservoir sector model and a directional survey of the well
for which the completions are designed. A sector model is used for reservoir simulation in the workflow to
reduce the amount of time spent in simulation, as opposed to analysis and design. The directional survey
is necessary to define the well in the nodal analysis simulator. Initially, the reservoir sector model need not
contain a description of the well for which the completions are designed. The well description will be added
after the first well completion design step. Fig. 1 shows the workflow summary.

Figure 1—Proposed well completion design workflow.

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A description of each workflow step is as follows:

1. Simulate the initial (zero) timestep of the reservoir sector model. This step provides an initial
reservoir simulation solution that is imported into the nodal analysis simulator. It is important that
the reservoir simulation solution contain information about gridblock saturations, permeability, and
pressure. This information is used by the nodal analysis simulator to produce the reservoir model
proxy for calculating the detailed inflow.
2. Import the reservoir simulation solution for the initial timestep into the nodal analysis simulator. The
borehole is defined in the nodal analysis simulator using the directional survey.
3. Analyze the information in the reservoir model, with respect to the well survey, and develop an initial
completion design. At this stage, an engineer designs the well for optimal performance at the initial
reservoir conditions. The initial completion design helps explain production challenges and serves as
the base case for subsequent modifications to the completion design.
4. Generate a segmented well description for the reservoir simulator. This step automatically translates
the well model from the nodal analysis simulator into the keywords necessary to simulate an equivalent
model in the reservoir simulator.
5. Simulate the reservoir sector model over the well production horizon. This step calculates the dynamic
effect of the completion design and the nearby producing and injecting wells on well production.
6. Reimport the complete reservoir simulation solution into the nodal analysis simulator. The nodal
analysis simulator uses updated reservoir data for visualization and calculation of reservoir inflow at
different timesteps.
7. Analyze well production at several timesteps using the nodal analysis simulator. Adjust packer
placement to isolate zones, adjust the completion design to control coning or damping, and check flow
assurance, including artificial lift provisions, drawdown investigation, sand production depletion,
influx rates, etc. If the well completion design is unsatisfactory, adjust the completion design and
continue from Step 4.
8. Once a satisfactory well completion design is established, generate the segmented well description
and perform a full-field simulation over the field production horizon. Costs estimates based on the
candidate well completion designs can then be prepared.
The nodal analysis software used during this process performs detailed wellbore hydraulics, including
openhole wells to complex multilaterals, simultaneous tubing and up to four annuli, and the ability to analyze
multiple scenarios with detailed reservoir inflow. The benefit of the nodal analysis software is that it can
be quickly executed to analyze multiple scenarios in a short time frame. Detailed reservoir inflow can be
analyzed based on the static reservoir model or logs. The nodal analysis software automatically spawns the
wellbore and near-wellbore (NWB) area with a mesh of nodes based on completions specified by the user.
It facilitates well design based on an optimized production response from the well. Reservoir properties
are obtained from the reservoir model or logs and typically have a sampling distance of less than 1 m. The
nodal analysis software models the effect of the wellbore hydraulics along the productive interval, thus
quickly modeling the effect of the completion along the interval and well sizing, placement, and length.
The goal of this process is to integrate reservoir simulation and tubing design. The currently available
reservoir simulation software that is designed for simulating movement of fluids in the reservoir includes
only simplistic models of well hydraulics, if any. Tubing design software models the flow of fluids from
the bottom to the top of the well and uses simple models of well performance, generally ignoring wellbore
hydraulics or using only simplistic models. The nodal analysis software used in this model can address
complex well hydraulics, including the following (Fig. 2):
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Figure 2—Network of nodes in nodal analysis.

• Simultaneous solution of flow in the tubing and annulus, between the tubing and annulus, and
between the annulus and reservoir. Porous material in the annulus can also be considered (e.g.,
with a gravel pack or a situation in which the open annulus collapses and rock fills the annulus).
• Automatic solving of flow directions. This allows for design of completions in which the flow in
the annulus is both up and down the well (e.g., opposite direction of flow, stinger case). From a
design viewpoint, this is an obvious objective but is numerically somewhat difficult to achieve.
• Numerous options for the pressure drop through completion components.

The proposed process combines completion modeling with reservoir simulation and provides better data
integration to optimize on well and field levels.

Well Completion Design Example Using the Proposed Workflow

Initially, all data necessary for modeling the wellbore and reservoir are obtained, a reservoir model is built
or entered from reservoir simulation software, and the well schematic is defined. With these basics in place,
the well completion is selected in the nodal analysis software and is designed using the NWB model. A
sensitivity analysis is then conducted using the nodal analysis simulator coupled with the reservoir model
to investigate the completion design effect on well production and economics. During this step, several
completion types are studied and for the type selected, the parameters are optimized using the integrated
model until the objectives are met.
For the case presented, a sector model simulation is run for a single well model in the reservoir simulation
software. After 5,500 days of production, gas breakthrough into the well becomes severe, thus causing the
well to produce gas, rather than the desired oil phase (Fig. 3).
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Figure 3—Reservoir simulation model at 0 and 5,500 days.

The simulation grid and its properties are imported from the reservoir simulator into the nodal analysis
simulator to analyze the properties along the well (Fig. 4).

Figure 4—Reservoir model cross section with gas saturation for an openhole well.

Simulation in the nodal analysis software shows the inflow along the wellbore at the time of gas
breakthrough (Fig. 5).
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Figure 5—Oil, gas, water, gas/oil ratio (GOR), and water cut (WCUT) along the wellbore.

Once the areas of gas breakthrough along the well are analyzed, the mechanical conformance treatment
can be simulated in the nodal analysis software to minimize gas inflow. In this case, the lower completion
is divided into 10 packer-isolated zones and completed with nozzle ICDs (Fig. 6). The nozzle diameter is
initially set at 3.0 mm.

Figure 6—Wellbore divided into 10 zones with nozzle ICDs.

Through a steady-state simulation, it is determined that the inflow is unbalanced because all the ICDs
have the same nozzle diameter (Fig. 7).
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Figure 7—Phase flow rates along the wellbore with equal nozzle diameter ICDs.

The nozzle diameter for the ICDs is modified to achieve a better inflow profile along the well. The
diameter is reduced in the segments in which high gas production occurs (Fig. 8). A smaller nozzle diameter
restricts gas inflow and delays the onset of gas breakthrough (Fig. 9).

Figure 8—Well trajectory vs. distance to the gas cap.

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Figure 9—Modified nozzle diameter for ICDs.

In addition to high-permeability streaks, the design accounts for the distance from the gas and water
contacts.
Modification of the nozzle diameter lowers the gas production along the wellbore (Fig. 10).

Figure 10—Reservoir-well inflow with modified ICD nozzle diameter.

The well production rate is also optimized to achieve stable flow and match the ICD openings.
Once satisfactory flow along the wellbore is achieved, the completions are exported into the reservoir
simulator to run full-scale simulations using the new completion designs (Figs. 11 and 12).
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Figure 11—Gas cumulative rate inside the openhole (purple) vs. modified completion well (blue).

Figure 12—Oil cumulative rates for openhole and ICD wells.

The full field-scale simulation clearly indicates reduced gas production and more streamlined oil
production. The completions result in a more evenly drained reservoir compared to the openhole well (Table
1).
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Table 1—Comparison of openhole well and well with ICD.

Well with ICD Openhole Well

Cumulative time (days) 6,665 6,665

Cumulative oil production (103 m3) 575 642

Cumulative gas production (103 m3) 204 209 472 976

Cumulative water production (10 m )

3 3 758 691

Oil production rate (m /d)

3 70 82

Gas production rate (m /d)

3 52 588 106 502

Water production rate (m3/d) 130 118

GOR (m3/m3) 756 1305

Water cut (m3/m3) 0.65 0.59

Table 1—

The full-scale simulation provided the following results:

• Cumulative oil production with the ICD is 89% of the openhole well and −43% gas. There was
some decrease in oil production, but the GOR was significantly reduced because of the decrease
in gas production.
• A high GOR of 1300 in the openhole well can cause issues with lift or separation.

• The well with ICD produces less because of choking.

• The well with ICD will likely run longer than the openhole well and obtain higher recovery.

• The well with ICD has 6% higher water cut because water was not controlled during this case.

Discussion and Conclusions

The example presented shows that a one-iteration design of advanced completions allows for reduced gas
rates twice, but the trade-off is a lower oil rate and bottomhole pressure (BHP). Further optimization is
necessary in both the overall reservoir fluid flow and the wellbore inflow. This paper presents a process that
addresses both of these scenarios to help enhance production and maximize the long-term value of the well
and reservoir. Thereby, well and field design can be performed in a consistent manner.
The tests performed during this study indicate that detailed analysis can be performed using the proposed
approach, in which water or gas breakthrough in the well can be limited to maintain pressure for longer
periods and therefore help improve the ultimate recovery from the well.
An integrated reservoir-to-completion-to-wellbore model that accounts for dynamic interactions of the
well completion and reservoir during the well lifetime allows for an optimum selection of the well
completion. The use of a nodal analysis simulator fills the gap between reservoir and lift optimization
software because of its ability to capture flow through various completions and create a detailed reservoir
performance feedback, which is impossible using the classical nodal analysis approach. This integration
combines reservoir deliverability with completion flow performance, thus helping enable easy modeling of
well and reservoir behavior.
It also allows for collaborative workflows in which reservoir engineers can set up a model in a reservoir
simulator, completion/production engineers can perform necessary tasks in completion-focused software,
and both can evaluate the well and reservoir combined performance over time.
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Opportunities for Improvement

Better Integration Between the Reservoir and Nodal Analysis Simulators in Modeling Completions. If the
completion cannot be modelled using the same equations in both the wellbore and reservoir simulators, it is
practically impossible for a user to evaluate the differences between the completion models in two different
simulators. Thus, the conclusions achieved using the workflow become suspect.
Expanded Proxy Model of the Reservoir in the Nodal Analysis Simulator. A potential inefficiency in the
proposed workflow is in the necessary handoff of models between production and reservoir engineers during
evaluation of well completion design using the reservoir simulator or analyses of the reservoir simulation
results to adjust the well completion design. Nodal analysis simulators generally calculate a steady-state
solution to the pressure-flow relationships in the wellbore. Improving the reservoir proxy model used by the
nodal analysis simulator to support dynamic simulation of a single well using a limited view of the reservoir
model could reduce the transition time between simulations of the different models.

Acknowledgements
The authors thank the management of Halliburton for permission to present this paper and for use of the
software.

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