Underbalance well completion - a modern approach for mature gas fields

¹ Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Sibiu, Romania
² SNGN ROMGAZ SA, Mediaş, Romania

^* Corresponding author: argentina.tataru@romgaz.ro

Abstract

The exploitation of natural gas fields from Transylvanian Basin started a century ago. The majority of these fields were discovered and developed in the last century, from 1950 to 1970. So, these reservoirs have over 50 years of production historical. These are mature fields with a very low reservoir pressure. Now, for some of these reservoirs the pressure is 10 – 20 % of initial values. The biggest challenge for a production company is to make completions and recompletions in depleted reservoirs wells. At the beginning was not a problem to do a workover in these wells because the completion fluids were lost in the reservoir and the pressure helped the wells to clean up. Now, because the reservoir pressure is very low, it takes time for well to be cleaned. From time to time, some net pays have to be bypassed because the fluid can be lost in the reservoir. So the best method to do recompletion works in these wells is to work underbalance or even with the well under pressure. This paper presents some of the technologies used by Romgaz to accomplish this goal.