A producer and a service company have collaborated to develop a downhole system to merge multilateral technology and intelligent completions to create “smart laterals.” This approach is known as the extreme-reservoir-contact (ERC) approach to reservoir management. The complete paper discusses ERC completion technology that segments laterals into multiple compartments to provide flow rate, pressure, temperature, and water-cut measurements, together with variable choking in each compartment.
Technology-Development Program
Even the most-experienced and -diligent development teams cannot deal with an “unknown unknown,” defined here as a serious problem so deeply hidden that it eludes discovery by all laboratory prototype test methods. Therefore, full-scale tests and preliminary field trials must be conducted early as part of the development exercise. This approach was used successfully in Well Trial 1, which verified well-construction practices, and Well Trial 2, which tested prototype electrical control valves.
Executing Well Trials 1 and 2 revealed “unknown unknowns” in the pressure-gauge electronics and the assembly of the water-cut sensor.
