Title: "Well Placement: Updip or Downdip, and Drainage Science Behind it?"
Abstract:
Whenever we drill for oil or gas, aquifer is never too far behind. How does the presence of aquifer affect the drainage areas, shapes, reserves, and economics of drilling such a well?
The talk will present several examples of drainage area shapes in multi-well reservoirs in presence of oil water contact or gas oil contact, such as in edge water drive or gas cap drive systems with faults one one side or two sides. This information is also useful and important in peripheral flooding, direct or staggered line drive flooding and during injection into an aquifer for water or liquid waste disposal, or gas storage, CO2 storage under carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) operations, and development of geothermal reservoirs. How might it impact your well placement decisions?
It is shown that drainage areas and reserves are significantly less for wells closer to oil-water or gas-oil contacts than those further away from these contacts. Also, the changing well producing rates in multi-well reservoirs affect the drainage areas of individual wells with time. A detailed analysis of a two-well system can be used to understand the behavior in large multiwall reservoirs.
Speaker Bio:
Anil Kumar is the founder and president of Omak Technologies LLC in Plano, Texas, which provides petroleum engineering consulting services. He is known as the “father of the pressure derivative technology”, which he pioneered in 1976. This has become the dominant technology platform in transient well testing. He was chairman and associate professor of petroleum engineering at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, and helped create the institute’s New Mexico Petroleum Recovery Research Center. Anil was later an adjunct associate professor at Tulane University. Kumar then worked in senior positions at several domestic and international major oil companies.
Anil was the Chief EOR Engineer for Gulf Oil in New Orleans, and initiated the first CO2 project in Quarantine Bay; later was Chief Engineer for the huge McElroy field waterflood in Crane County, and Reservoir Engineering Manager for the Sacroc CO2 project within Chevron. He subsequently was Senior Reservoir Engineering Advisor within Mobil and optimized the Salt Creek CO2 project in Kent County, TX; and later coordinated the first deepwater development offshore Indonesia. He was a Reservoir Engineering Consultant at Devon Energy of Indonesia, and Petro China International Jakarta. As a Senior Vice President at Reliance Industries, he built a 60-member subsurface team for India’s first deep water development in KG Basin Block-D6, which doubled the gas production in India during 2009.
Kumar is a recipient of the 1997 SPE Reservoir Award, 2013 SPE Formation Evaluation Award, and the 2015 SPE/AIME Anthony F. Lucas Award (the highest technical award), and was installed as SPE Honorary Member in 2017. Kumar became an SPE Distinguished Member in 2001 and a Distinguished Lecturer during 1995–1996 on optimization of injection recovery project. He was honored with the Kapitsa Medal from the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, the 2005 Engineer of the Year award from the Texas Society of Professional Engineers, and Energy Ambassador award from the Texas Energy Council. Anil has served SPE as Board Member, and on numerous committees and events as chairman, co-chairman, member, JPT editorial board, judge for PhD student paper contests, and a key-note speaker. He has presented numerous technical short courses for SPE, and PetroSkills around the world. I was the Chairman of the SPEI Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award Committee for 2013-14; have served on the SPEI Formation Evaluation Award Committee for 2016-18, and the SPEI Public Service Award Committee for 2023-25.
Kumar holds a BS with top honors from the Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad, India; an MS from Louisiana State University, and a PhD from Stanford University, all in petroleum engineering. He is a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Tau Beta Pi, and Pi Epsilon Tau honor societies. He is a member of SIPES, ADAM, DGS, SPE, and serves on the Board of Texas Energy Council, and External Advisory Board of College of Engineering at U. of North Texas.
