Halliburton to coax more oil out of largely depleted Ghawar field

Halliburton was awarded a five year integrated turnkey contract for Ghawar field. Work will be performed in Uthmaniyah, Haradh, Hawiyah and Shedgum. Halliburton will provide drilling rigs, directional and horizontal drilling tools, logging, cementing, mud engineering, perforation, completion and well construction services. Halliburton will engineer and manage the entire drilling operation.Three to four rigs will drill and complete between 153 and 185 oil and water injection wells.

Ghawar field, the world's largest, is a long asymmetric structure that is 230 kilometers long and approximately 30 miles wide however the width diminishes going south.The The announcement makes no mention of Ain Dar, the most mature part of Ghawar in the extreme northwestern region of the field. Ain Dar has been under pressure maintenance by peripheral water injection for over 40 years. Ain Dar (and other parts of the field) began producing salt water in the late 1970s and by 2005, the cut was 42%. All of Ain Dar was wet since 1984. Once water became a major problem, many existing vertical wells were converted to short lateral horizontals running along the top 10 feet of the Arab D zone, the main pay. New wells were drilled horizontally to the same layer. Today, the redevelopment process has gone on so long that future oil production from Ain Dar is speculative. Shedgum, adjacent to Ain Dar on the east, is not much better off. Both regions began oil production in 1951. Uthmaniyah was developed after Ain Dar and Shedgum were fully developed with vertical wells on 1 square kilometer spacing. It is somewhat narrower and the thickness of the Arab D is less.Reservoir quality is diminished. Hawiyah, narrower than Uthmaniyah and to the south of it, was then developed. Reservoir quality is further diminished. In Haradh, developed in the 1970s, reservoir quality is so poor that vertical wells have less than one fourth the productivity of the northern regions. In 1983 with reservoir pressure falling rapidly, the region was shut in. Following increased demand as the result of the invasion of Kuwait, in 1990, these shut in wells were returned to production. Redevelopment began in 1996 with horizontal and multilateral wells. The southernmost section of Haradh, known as Haradh III came on stream in February of 2006. Today, the entire field still contains a great deal of crude oil but it is much harder to get and the production rates continue to fall off. Halliburton's mandate will be to deal with higher and higher water cuts, utilize all known new technology to hold rates as high as possible and stimulate wells as required. The total number of wells drilled in Ghawar exceeds one thousand including hundreds of vertical wells that have either been abandoned or converted to horizontals. Now Halliburton will drill even more trying to improve rate and lessen decline. It is a good, long-term contract and a tall order for the company.

Halliburton Wins 5-Yr Drilling Gig in Mega-Giant Ghawar Field
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=82185
Friday, November 06, 2009

Halliburton has been awarded the integrated turnkey drilling contract in South Ghawar. Located approximately 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the city of Dhahran, the Ghawar field is the world’s largest oil field and the contract would involve work in Uthmaniyah, Haradh, Hawiyah and Shedgum.

The five-year contract, with an option for an additional five-year period, calls for the provision of drilling rigs, directional and horizontal drilling, logging while drilling, cementing, mud engineering, wireline logging, completion, perforating, and other well construction activities, including engineering and management of the entire drilling operations. The project is expected to utilize three to four rigs, and will involve between 153 and 185 oil production, water injection and evaluation wells.

This contract is Saudi Aramco’s first-ever award for an integrated turnkey drilling contract and is an important part of Saudi Aramco’s plan to explore new avenues of collaboration with major oil field services providers.

Ahmed Lotfy, Halliburton’s Eastern Hemisphere president, said, “Our selection by Saudi Aramco for yet another project of this magnitude demonstrates its continued confidence in our ability to successfully execute complex and challenging operations. This contract award includes a full range of Halliburton’s integrated technologies and services and provides a platform for future successes.”

“This award builds on the success we delivered on the Khurais mega-project, reflecting our leading technologies and solid performance,” added Gasser Badrashini, Halliburton’s Middle East and North Africa regional vice president.

Halliburton has performed thousands of service operations for Saudi Aramco, delivering solutions for the state-owned oil company of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for nearly 70 years. From well construction to fluid systems and from drilling and formation evaluation to production optimization, Halliburton has worked in a multitude of different reservoirs and wells, ranging from basic to complex, with customized solutions for Saudi Aramco’s Drilling and Workover and other Exploration and Production departments.

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