Excessive Water Production Analysis in the Abu-Attifel Oil Field Using Chan's Diagnostic Plots

Abstract

Excessive water production is one of the major problems in mature Libyan oil fields. Water production has the potential to reduce the productive life of oil and gas wells while also causing serious issues such as tubular corrosion, fines migration, and hydrostatic loading. The aim of this paper is to diagnose and evaluate excessive water production mechanisms in the Abu-Attifel Oil Field using Chan’s diagnostic plots. This technique was applied to seven wells in the Abu-Attifel oil field. After a strong depletion phase, water injection was set up and started in the field in 1974. The Chan’s diagnostic plots method is applied using Microsoft Excel format to calculate and plot the derivative response to understand the excessive water production mechanism. The diagnostic plots showed some random and noisy trends on both the WOR and WOR’ plots; hence, they provide a controversial basis for characterizing water production based on surface observation of production trends. The multilayer channeling with production changes could be one reason for the excessive water production in the studied wells. The results obtained need to be verified by close monitoring using production logging tools (PLT) and well testing techniques to ensure breakthrough time and identify the main reasons for excessive water production