Simulation study of controlling water coning in oil reservoirs through drilling of horizontal wells

Oil production is affected by the reservoir pressure, where the higher the reservoir pressure, the higher the production rate. In most cases, water is also produced with oil, which can cause several negative issues. In oil wells, after a short period of oil production, early water production will cause serious decrease in oil production. Actually water coning is an event in which water and oil surfaces will move simultaneously to the well perforation. This event, if occurs in a well, will affect the well production and will increase the costs. Consequently, the production life of the well will be shortened. This paper presents the results of simulation study of an under saturated oil reservoir with no primary gas cap present in the reservoir with oil API gravity of 35. The feasibility of water coning remedy through drilling new horizontal and vertical wells was investigated using ECLIPSE software. The simulation results showed that water production rate is increased with increasing the oil production rate from the reservoir. In addition, water coning was significantly reduced with drilling new horizontal and vertical wells. However, horizontal wells found to be more effective than the vertical wells. The oil production rate increased with horizontal wells while water production rate decreased significantly.