Publications

Producing oils from heterogenous and tight reservoirs is a common challenge experienced in most mature oil fields. Oils in good quality reservoirs generally had been completed first in the early life of the fields. Meanwhile, major remaining oils are still locked in unfavorable heterogenous and tight reservoirs. To produce the oils from the heterogenous and tight reservoirs with favorable rates, there could be situations in which conventional directional drilling completion and even fracturing technology might be unsuccessful. This paper gives examples of horizonal wells with precise lateral section placement that enabled economic production of oil locked in heterogenous reservoirs. The precise horizontal placement had been applied in Alpha Field by targeting a heterogenous and lowpressure Alpha-sand reservoir. Oil productions from the horizontal wells have shown encouraging and stable rates. The production performances also surpassed those from normal perforation and even fracturing completion in directional wells. The success had provided a lesson learned that precise horizontal well placement can provide an alternative solution to unlock oils residing in heterogenous and low-pressure reservoirs. The lesson learned can be leveraged to improve oil production and recovery across mature fields in Central Sumatra Basin and also to other basins in Indonesia.