8/6/2019 Development - Avoiding Interventions in a Marginal
Field
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Case Study
Background and Subsurface Setting
The South Furious eld is located offshore Sabah, Malaysia,
and is operated by Shell as a joint venture with Petronas
Carigali Sdn Bhd. The development of the eld was fast-
tracked, with planned rst oil production in fourth quarter,
2001, from an unmanned minimal facility platform. The
eld features one of the worlds rst remotely-controlled
and integrated SmartWell intelligent eld applications.
The subsurface setting is a stratigraphically rapped
turbidite
reservoir with very poorly sorted sands. Permeability ranges
from 10 to 2000 md, with an average of 250 md. The
average porosity is 25%.
Challenge
The South Furious eld is a limited oileld with marginal
economics. To mitigate the risk of reservoir performance
uncertainty, innovative completion technology and digital
solutions were required to allow data acquisition from
and remote production management of an unmanned
platform.
SmartWell Solution
SmartWell technology was deployed to eliminate cost-
prohibitive well interventions and to allow real-time
downhole reservoir data acquisition.
The data acquired by the SmartWell system is crucial for
economically-viable production from this complex reservoir.
Downhole electrical submersible pumps (ESPs) are
integrated with the SmartWell intelligent completion system
to enable optimization of the articial lift.
Avoiding Interventions
in a Marginal Field
Customer Value
Well tests were performed on each individual zone with the
valves opened and closed numerous times. The SmartWell
intelligent completion system exceeded client expectations.
It is estimated that wells SF30-3 and SF30-5 are both
producing approximately 4000 BOPD. It is predicted that
SmartWell technology deployed in South Furious Field will
improve eld life cycle value by 30%.
The SmartWell technology deployed in South Furious has
demonstrated the capability of accelerating production,
reducing capital expenditure, reducing operating costs and
maximizing hydrocarbon recovery.
