THE DEFINING SERIES

Intelligent Completions Flow Control

To control flow from the formation, well operators may remotely open, close
Rick von Flatern or adjust the choke setting of downhole valves. The on-off option allows
Senior Editor operators to shut off production from a zone from which they may wish to
delay production, has become depleted or begins to produce unwanted gas
Because they took place in relatively shallow waters, early offshore explora- or water. In addition, by closing all but one zone and monitoring a pressure
tion and production operations were similar in many ways to those taking gauge at the sandface, operators can replicate much of the information that
place onshore. However, by the 1980s, operators were drilling for resources is available from wireline production logs (Figure 1).
found in remote areas and far from land in water depths that exceeded 300 Additional downhole flow control valves allow operators to regulate flow
m [1,000 ft]. To tap deepwater discoveries that can extend over many square rates at the sandface. Changing choke settings by varying the size of the
kilometers, operators drill wells from floating drilling units; these wells may valve flow port, production engineers can control the pressure and volume
extend laterally thousands of meters. contribution from a formation without shutting it off. This feature allows
To reduce the number of platforms required to exploit a field, operators operators to commingle production from differently pressured zones with-
use subsea completions for most wells completed in deep water. Subsea out creating crossflow, in which flow from a higher-pressured zone flows
completions are remotely controlled and accessed through wellheads that into a zone of lower pressure.
rest on the seafloor. Production flows from subsea wellheads and through By varying choke sizes at the sandface, engineers can also change the
flowlines on the ocean floor to a central surface processing unit. relative contribution of each zone to overall well production. This ability
What may be considered minor downhole operations on land and in shal- allows operators to optimize production over time as individual zones expe-
low water are often extremely costly when carried out on these wells located rience changes in rate, pressure, gas/oil ratio or water/oil ratio. Changing
in deep water where interventions require the use of floating rigs. Faced flow rates from individual zones allows operators to reduce drawdown pres-
with the specter of maintenance costs and production delays large enough sures at specific points in the reservoir and thus control water and gas con-
to upend well economics, the industry sought completion strategies that ing. Coning is the unwanted preferential flow of water or gas that results
would minimize well interventions. Central to those efforts was refinement from pressure drawdown at a perforated interval. Engineers can also opti-
of downhole monitoring and control systems, which were standardized and mize sweep efficiency by using adjustable flow valves to increase or decrease
packaged as intelligent completions (ICs). Intelligent completions include gas or water injection rates at targeted intervals.
pressure and temperature sensors that are able to deliver measurements to Operators may place flow control valves at multilateral well junctions,
the surface in near real time and remotely adjustable downhole chokes and where the main wellbore and high-angle and horizontal wellbores, or later-
sliding sleeves with which engineers can, from the surface, control flow at als, drilled from it are joined. To optimize production from each lateral,
the formation. Chokes are devices that control and regulate fluid flow; slid- engineers equip the lateral production liner with inflow control devices
ing sleeves are downhole hardware that can be opened or closed to manage (ICDs), which create increased backpressure as flow velocity through them
fluid flow into the well.
Because ICs were complex and expensive, operators limited their use
Annulus sensor Tubing sensor
almost exclusively to high-rate subsea wells. Over time, however, systems reads the Zone 1 reads the
became less costly and were integrated with software that enhanced their reservoir pressure. Zone 2 FBHP.
capabilities. Software designed for use in IC planning and management
emerged at roughly the same time as did drilling technologies that allowed
operators to drill long high-angle and multilateral wells that could access
numerous production zones from a single main wellbore. FCV 1 closes

Zonal Isolation Zone 1 Zone 2

The ability to simultaneously access and isolate numerous zones connected
to a main bore is an essential feature of ICs. In basic vertical wells that have Tubing sensor Annulus sensor
reads the reads the Zone 2
two or three producing formations, completion designers may accomplish Zone 1 FBHP. reservoir pressure.
this by deploying a dedicated tubing string for each zone. In wells that have
many producing intervals, operators set packers above and below each tar-
get zone. Packers use elastomer elements that expand to create a seal
against the wellbore. FCV 2 closes
Operators use feed-through packers to isolate zones in ICs. These pack-
ers have penetrations through which electrical cables and hydraulic lines Zone 1 Zone 2
can be passed without compromising the seal. The lines passed through the
packer are attached to the devices and sensors that control and monitor Figure 1. Production log-type data without intervention. In a multizone IC,
flow at each zone. each zone is isolated, monitored and controlled. The flowing bottomhole
pressure (FBHP) may be measured as flow from Zone 2 (red arrows) by
closing the flow control valve (FCV) across Zone 1 (top), while reservoir
buildup pressures in the shut-in Zone 1 are measured. By closing the FCV
For help in preparation of this article, thanks to Adrian Francis, Houston, Texas, USA. across Zone 2 and opening Zone 1 (bottom), reservoir pressure may be
Oilfield Review 2016. determined in Zone 2 and FBHP from Zone 1. This technique may be applied
Copyright © 2016 Schlumberger. to any number of zones.
www.slb.com/defining

increases. By exerting backpressure at intervals along the liner that is 3,700

Gamma ray Postproduction Preproduction
inversely proportional to fluid velocity, ICDs hinder the flow of high-pres- DTS profile DTS profile
sure fluids or fluids flowing through highly permeable strings within an 3,800
interval. This allows fluids from lower-pressured or less-permeable intervals Nonproducing zone
to flow into the lateral wellbore. In addition, ICDs are used in oil wells to 3,900
reduce water and gas flow rates in lateral wells when these phases are able

Depth, m
to flow through the formation more easily than does the oil. 4,000

Monitoring 4,100 Producing zone

Effective flow control is only possible when used in conjunction with per-
manent downhole gauges that are able to accurately monitor production 4,200
variables in real time. In recent years, the ability to gather pressure and Constant DTS profile below zone
temperature measurements at the formation and transmit them to the 4,300
surface in real time, along with greatly increased sensor longevity and 65 70 75
Temperature, °C
reliability, has changed the role of ICs from intervention avoidance to res-
ervoir management tool. Figure 2. Distributed temperature sensor (DTS) profile. Changes in
Unlike earlier pressure-temperature gauges that remained downhole for temperature profiles along the length of a well are caused by commingled
flow from multiple zones. By comparing flowing temperature profiles
a few hours or days, modern downhole permanent pressure and tempera- captured using permanent fiber-optic DTSs over time and correlated to a
ture gauges are designed for long-term deployment. Rated to work in pres- gamma ray log, operators are able to detect the origin and cause of changes
sures and temperatures as high as 172 MPa [25,000 psi] and 180ºC [356ºF], to that profile. In this instance, deviation between the original DTS profile
above the monitored zone (green shading) and the later DTS profile can be
they derive their longevity and reliability from the use of quartz and sap-
clearly traced to the zone defined by the gamma ray log (tan shading) because
phire transducers, welded assemblies, corrosion-resistant alloys and dura- the profile becomes constant below the producing zone (gray shading).
ble electronic components.
Because data obtained from permanent downhole gauges are acquired To maximize the benefits of real-time downhole monitoring and control
over an extended period of time, engineers are able to use them as a means capabilities, operators must process and act on a significant volume of data
for gathering insight into the reservoir. Monitoring systems have been throughout the life of the well. To accomplish this, downhole data are sent to
designed that also measure flow rate and fluid density. These measurements operator offices through supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA)
can be used in pressure transient analysis to estimate the permeability, skin systems, where they are analyzed using production optimization software. A
and drainage area over the life of the well. Skin is an estimation of flow steady-state, multiphase flow simulator uses modeling algorithms for nodal
efficiency; positive skin values refer to reduced flow compared to that from analysis to compare the data with those expected from optimal settings and
an undamaged formation. Engineers can use that data to identify produc- take corrective actions such as changing choke settings and flow rates at one
tion and reservoir anomalies such as water and gas breakthrough. or more intervals.
Operators may use fiber-optic cables deployed along the length of the In some advanced systems, the operator inputs a target production rate or other
production tubing to monitor downhole conditions. These distributed tem- parameters such as water production levels, and the program adjusts the down-
perature sensors (DTSs) provide data that may be analyzed to quantify hole chokes to achieve the desired result. The target parameter may be set for a
inflow profiles along the entire length of the well, allowing operators to zone, well or entire field. Software programs designed for intelligent well con-
immediately see, understand and react to changes in flow patterns from trol and monitoring may be expanded fieldwide to notify operators of equipment
individual zones (Figure 2). performance deviations or to capture production trends in the field over time.

Well Design Refining the System

Because intelligent wells include complex assemblies, engineers typically As a consequence of the development of more precise remote monitoring,
rely on computer programs to help them select, coordinate and manage control capabilities and design and management software, operators now
them. These software programs allow designers to import wellbore and tra- deploy ICs in a variety of well types, not only to minimize interventions but
jectory information into modeling programs that are used to create and ana- also to optimize operating efficiency and production. At the same time, the
lyze various casing and tubing designs. Available reservoir data—such as E&P industry is shifting from analog to digital data recording, providing
number and depths of zones, oil and gas gravities, hydrocarbon composi- operators with a tool for integrating and processing large amounts of data
tion, initial and final reservoir pressures and productivity indexes—are from many sources. The ability to treat these data from a fieldwide perspec-
used as input for production modeling. tive has been critical in allowing operators to realize the full potential of ICs
Using production models, operators are able to calculate total flow rate and, by extension, the reservoirs the completions are designed to access.
and production contribution from each zone. They can then add restraints The latest iteration of IC systems includes in situ measurements of pres-
to the design, such as the number of control lines available or the number of sure, temperature, flow rate and water cut across the formation face in each
zones to be produced, and choose the well design and production scenario zone of each lateral. All sensors are packaged in a single station together with
that optimizes hydrocarbon recovery. By varying choke settings within the an electric flow control valve that has infinitely variable settings controlled
model, the operator can observe the impact on individual zonal contribution from the surface through a single electric control line. This ability to monitor
and overall production and customize flow control valve settings before the and control large numbers of zones in a well has significantly increased opera-
wells are completed. tor production and reservoir management in heterogeneous or multilayered
reservoirs and in extended-reach developments.

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