CONCEPTUAL DESIGN IN SINGLE RUN WELL TESTING FOR MULTIPLE TEST ZONES

This project focuses singularly on the well testing during
exploration and appraisal. Well testing is recognized by many operating
oil and gas companies to be the most hazardous operation that they
regularly operate. Planning a well testing operation is an extremely
complex task and requires a lot of experience. Well testing costs are
typically accounting for about one third of the cost of an exploration well,
and in many cases, much more. The potential for a budget over run can. be
high, unless there are timely and effective well test planning. Nowadays,
there are a lot of well testing systems available. Each system claims to
have their own advantages compare to others. Each system can be
beneficial in different scenario. However, the trend in recent years shows
that the systems are getting more complicated, which require more tools in
the test string. This has made the test system not efficient in certain cases,
especially in term of cost. The objectives of this project are to: a) Study
the single run well testing in multiple test zones technology for as much
understanding as possible; b) Propose a design of a more efficient well
testing technique; c) Produce a guideline in applying single run well
testing in multiple test zones which focuses more on cost factor. The
project proposes a design which is more efficient than the latest design
proposed at the Offshore Technology Conference held in Houston, Texas,
USA, 2-5 May 2011. It is cost efficient as the total cost for well testing
equipment is lower than the latest design. The proposed design is planned
for permanent use inside the well. If it is a dry well, considering the high
rig rate per day and the operating cost, the total cost of leaving the test
string inside the well is still lower than the cost of using the latest design.
Amount of the time savings depends on individual cases, but surely there
is a lot time had been cut. Additional point for this design is it is not
complicated to operate it, thus no need extra cost to hire expert to handle
the equipments.