ÇAĞRILI KONUŞMALAR / KEYNOTES Invited Speeches ... - TPJD

Gravitational Production Method
Yalçın Ermiş 1 , Abdurrahman Satman 2 , Ahmet Gümüş 1
1 Turkish Petroleum Corporation, Exploration Department, Ankara
2 İstanbul Technİcal University, Department of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering, İstanbul
A method consisting of intersecting production wells and resulting in improved recovery in oil
fields is introduced in this paper. It is called “Gravitational Production Method” and its advantages
over the traditional methods are discussed.Implementation of this method is possible whenever
a vertical well and a horizontal well are intersected. The aim of such configuration is to increase
the production rate and hence the recovery. The advantages are numerous: both wells can be
used for production purposes, the combined drainage area is extended, the gravitational pressure
gain wherever a dip of stratum between wells exists helps to increase the reservoir pressure
gradient and yields higher production rate, the occurance of water coning is delayed due to the
horizontal part of the configuration, and finally a higher production rate becomes possible by
setting the production pumps at deeper locations in wells. Although the initial investement is
higher due to the additional costs for implementing the technologies involved in intersecting
process of the wells, however, the rate of return is expected to be shorter because of increased
recovery.
The design of such method for Caylarbasi oil reservoir is discussed and the preliminary results of
the field application in Batı Raman oil reservoir conducted recently are presented.
Keywords: Gravitational production method, intersecting wells, field applications.
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