A New Approach to Test Production of Exploration Wells in the Territory of Eastern Siberia

Abstract

Trial operation of prospecting and exploratory wells tends to be affected by the remoteness of the field from the main transportation routes, weakly developed industry, energy, and transport infrastructures, the lack of a well surface facility system and the oil preparation system to start production.

This report describes an example of a trial operation of a remote prospecting well that includes all pre-development works, a surveying program that allows obtaining the maximum information about the productive horizon in a short time. It also provides recommendations for the adoption of technologies for pilot operation based on the block-modular production complexes for the early production launch of exploratory and prospecting wells or individual sections of the field, and technologies for continuous well monitoring and management, including bottomhole pressure gauges, a distributed temperature sensing system and a system for real-time data receiving and transmitting to the subsoil user.

This approach allows us not only talking about early production, but also solving a number of tasks, e.g. petroleum evaluation, extraction capacities of a deposit, drainage area, formation pressure evaluation, optimal well operation mode identification, gas/oil ratio change estimates, water cut, and other geological tasks. The report also describes the key drawbacks of applied trial operation methods and technologies as compared to the proposed technologies.