ROBUST AND FIT-FOR-PURPOSE SAND-CONTROL TECHNOLOGY APPLICATION TO PRODUCE MARGINAL RESERVES IN PERTAMINA HULU MAHAKAM

• Main Author: Sobirin, Muhammad
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Subjects: Manajemen umum
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/70201
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Pertamina Hulu Mahakam (PHM) is an oil and gas exploration and production operator in Mahakam delta river. Mature fields development in Mahakam was aiming shallow unconsolidated sand-stone reservoirs with high sand-risk character. The proportion of shallow wells development is tending to increase recently. As the result, even though it contributes major part of company’s production, but it also has natural consequences on the increasing trend of sand-produced volume. Sand production is not expected and become one of the most dangerous hazard in the industry because the sand grains has abrasive physical property. It may cause consequences of a detrimental to the short-long-term well productivity, damage the hydrocarbon-contained surface facilities and may even cause a serious to catastrophic safety accident. The loss of hydrocarbon containment and release into the atmosphere might be followed by deadly disaster (fire and environment pollutions). In order to safely produce these reservoirs type, PHM currently applies the robust dieselbased chemical sand-consolidation (DB-SCON) technology for considerably high stakes reservoirs and combined with mechanical sand-screens for the lower stakes ones. Along the field’s production period, the average reserves of trend of a shallow reservoir is tending to decrease and lead to the declining trend of sand-control project economics. The company forms a project research team with main mission to find the robust and fit-for-purpose sandcontrol technology application to produce the marginal reserves. The project team conducts the combination of quantitative and qualitative research design by collecting data from the internal statistic and technical data (quantitative) and combined with the data from series of interviews with the stakeholders and competent personnel in the company (qualitative). The research uses current reality tree (CRT) diagram to determine three main root causes of economics declines trend: high DB-SCON investment cost, low-productivity and lowreliability of current mechanical sand-screen. The project team proposes alternative sandcontrol technology solutions with three main criteria: reliability, productivity and investment cost. There are four proposed alternatives technologies that fulfil these criteria and has been analyzed that potentially can increase the sand-control project economics of marginal reserves: the existing applied technology (DB-SCON), water-based chemical sand-consolidation (WB-SCON), high erosion resistance sand-screen (HERSS) and sand management (SM) technologies. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) determines that HERSS is chosen as the most robust and fit-for-purpose sand-control technology. The comparison between HERSS field trials result and DB-SCON shows that HERSS is capable to significantly reduce the investment cost by 68.0%, maintaining the reliability or success ratio at 88.2% (DB-SCON recorded as 88.5%), compete the productivity to produce gas production at 2.5 MMscfd, accelerates the production 14 days earlier, and reduce the economic sand-control cut-off reserve limit from 0.1 down to 0.02 BCF. HERSS that is made by zircon metal capable to significantly improve the mechanical sand-screen performance. It demonstrates superior performances than ceramic-made sand-screen, by significantly increases the reliability from 64.7% to 88.5% and can decrease the investment cost by 30.7%. The industrialization of HERSS sand-control technology application is planned in 2023. The shift of technology is expected can generate cost optimization with a total of $27.4 million along the year according to company’s sand-control work programs. The thesis research also provides the recommendations to the implementation plan which potentially further increase the realization of the sand-control project economics.