Inflow Control Valves

[Crispina Blomker]

An active component installed as part of a well completion to partially or completely choke flow into a well. Inflow control valves can be installed along the reservoir section of the completion, with each device typically separated from the next via a packer. Each valve can be controlled from the surface to maintain flow conformance and, as the reservoir depletes, to stop unwanted fluids from entering the wellbore. A permanent downhole cable provides electric and hydraulic conduits to relay commands from the surface to each valve.

Intelligent completion systems are the best option to enable the selection between production zones, ensuring efficient reservoir management and increased oil recovery of oil and gas fields. However, low reliability and multiplex limitation of hydraulic systems still hamper its full use.

The eICV is a highly reliable inflow control valve, based on a fully electric actuation system integrated with a well monitoring system. This innovative equipment allows precise control of injection or production flow, in deepwater wells, over a range of extreme temperatures, high pressures and large flow rates.

The infinitely variable choke and sophisticated flow production profile allow optimal production and injection control of each zone in the reservoir. In addition, multiple eICVs can be installed in the well sharing a single downhole cable with the completely integrated well monitoring system, thus increasing oil recovery and reducing operational cost.

In wells where fluid, water, or steam are injected to encourage hydrocarbons to flow into a second nearby well, this same technology is used in ICDs to balance injection pressures along the entire injection interval. Our ICDs provide control for compartmentalized injection along the lateral allowing for more effective secondary recovery efforts, better reservoir control, and higher ultimate recovery.

ICDs and autonomous inflow control devices (AICDs) typically are used in combination with screens to extend reliability. Regardless of your specific application, our wide range of ICDs, AICDs, passive control systems, sliding sleeves, and accessories can help you improve both production and recovery.

ResFlow inflow control devices (ICDs) and ResInject injection ICDs help maintain uniform inflow and injection rates, respectively, across the entire length of the interval in openhole completions, even in the presence of permeability variations and thief zones.

Produced fluid enters the production tubing through the ICD. In high-permeability or high-pressure zones, the higher fluid velocity causes the ResFlow ICD to exert higher backpressure than in less productive zones. Consequently low-productivity zones are stimulated to produce more than in conventional screen completions, minimizing the risk of bypassing reserves and increasing hydrocarbon recovery.

ResFlow ICDs and ResInject injection ICDs help maintain uniform inflow and injection rates, respectively, in openhole completions. Both ICDs are made of a LineSlot premium direct-wire-wrapped screen wrapped on unperforated basepipe with a housing located at the upper end of the screen.

Decisions regarding problem conceptualization, search approach, and how best to parametrize optimization methods for practical application are key to successful implementation of optimization approaches within georesources field development projects. This work provides decision support regarding the application of derivative-free search approaches for concurrent optimization of inflow control valves (ICVs) and well controls. A set of state-of-the-art approaches possessing different search features is implemented over two reference cases, and their performance, resource requirements, and specific method configurations are compared across multiple problem formulations for completion design. In this study, problem formulations to optimize completion design comprise fixed ICVs and piecewise-constant well controls. The design is optimized by several derivative-free methodologies relying on parallel pattern-search (tAPPS), population-based stochastic sampling (tPSO) and trust-region interpolation-based models (tDFTR). These methodologies are tested on a heterogeneous two-dimensional case and on a realistic case based on a section of the Olympus benchmark model. Three problem formulations are applied in both cases, i.e., one formulation optimizes ICV settings only, while two joint configurations also treat producer and injector controls as variables. Various method parametrizations across the range of cases and problem formulations exploit the different search features to improve convergence, achieve final objectives and infer response surface features. The scope of this particular study treats only deterministic problem formulations. Results outline performance trade-offs between parallelizable algorithms (tAPPS, tPSO) with high total runtime search efficiency and the local-search trust-region approach (tDFTR) providing effective objective gains for a low number of cost function evaluations. tAPPS demonstrates robust performance across different problem formulations that can support exploration efforts, e.g., during a pre-drill design phase while multiple independent tDFTR runs can provide local tuning capability around established solutions in a time-constrained post-drill setting. Additional remarks regarding joint completion design optimization, comparison metrics, and relative algorithm performance given the varying problem formulations are also made.

Oil production from thin-oil-rim fields can be challenging as such fields are prone to gas coning. Excessive gas production from these fields results in poor production and recovery. Hence, these resources require advanced recovery methods to improve the oil recovery.

One of the recovery methods that is widely used today is advanced inflow control technology such as autonomous inflow control valve (AICV). AICV restricts the inflow of gas in the zones where breakthrough occurs and may consequently improve the recovery from thin-oil-rim fields.

This paper presents a performance analysis of AICVs, passive inflow control devices (ICDs), and sand screens based on the results from experiments and simulations. Single- and multiphase-flow experiments are performed with light oil, gas, and water at typical Troll field reservoir conditions (RCs).

The obtained data from the experiments are the differential pressure across the device vs. the volume flow rate for the different phases. The results from the experiments confirm the significantly better ability of the AICV to restrict the production of gas, especially at higher gas volume fractions (GVFs). Near-well oil production from a thin-oil-rim field considering sand screens, AICV, and ICD completion is modeled. In this study, the simulation model is developed using the CMG simulator/STARS module.

Completion of the well with AICVs, reduces the cumulative gas production by 22.5% and 26.7% compared with ICDs and sand screens, respectively. The results also show that AICVs increase the cumulative oil production by 48.7% compared with using ICDs and sand screens.

The simulation results confirm that the well completed with AICVs produces at a beneficial gas/oil ratio (GOR) for a longer time compared with the cases with ICDs and sand screens. The novelty of this work is the multiphase experiments of a new AICV and the implementation of the data in the simulator.

A workflow for the simulation of AICV/ICD is proposed. The simulated results, which are based on the proposed workflow, agree with the experimental AICV performance results. As it is demonstrated in this work, deploying AICV in the most challenging light oil reservoirs with high GOR can be beneficial with respect to increased production and recovery.

This abstract is taken from paper SPE-218393-PA by Soheila Taghavi, University of South-Eastern Norway and InflowControl AS; Haavard Aakre, InflowControl AS; and Seyed Amin Tahami and Britt Modestad, University of South-Eastern Norway. The paper has been peer reviewed and is available as Open Access in SPE Journal on OnePetro.

Halliburton has since completed in excess of 300 FlexRite installations for this operator, using different FlexRite junctions. The most notable of these has been the 10 3/4-inch multibranch inflow control (MIC) junction, which allows selective branch control of multiple laterals. In late 2018, Halliburton celebrated its 100th FlexRite MIC installation in the North Sea.

In March 2017, this same Norwegian operator approached Halliburton, needing a new TAML Level 5 MLT solution for its mature field in the North Sea. While the operator had been using Halliburton MLT technology successfully for many years in this field, its use was limited to individual branch control in dual lateral applications, as well as comingling from additional branches in tri and quad lateral wells. The operator asked Halliburton to create up to three and four laterals from 9 5/8-inch casing, which would help increase overall reservoir exposure, while still maintaining the selective control and monitoring of each individual lateral. At the time, a system with this functionality in this size did not exist globally.

Halliburton has a long history of collaborating with this Norwegian operator to develop MLT solutions to address its field challenges. The Halliburton 10 3/4-inch FlexRite MIC junction has had a proven track record, and was the first TAML Level 5 junction of its kind to allow intelligent completion components to be run through the junction. This proved to be a significant step change in the possibilities for advanced completion solutions and selective, remote branch control.

In mid-2017, Halliburton began working with the operator to design and develop a completely new FlexRite MIC system for 9 5/8-inch casing. The new junction had to be compatible with an intelligent completion solution to provide selective control of each lateral.

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