Kuwait’s drive to develop its heavy crude resources in the North has surpassed its original goals, with a total of 537 wells drilled at northern fields bearing heavy crude.
In an interview in the upcoming edition of Oil & Gas Middle East, Hosnia Hasim, Deputy Managing Director for North Kuwait at the Kuwait Oil Company, said the North is maintaining a sustained production rate of 700,000 barrels per day, and that the North Kuwait Heavy Crude development plan has far surpassed original plans.
“The plan for drilling at Northern Kuwaiti fields was indeed initially encompassing the drilling of 200 wells. We surpassed this number by far, reaching a total of 537 wells drilled in this area, 258 of them drilled in 2011,” Hashim said.
One of these wells was the second-longest shallow well drilled in the world, with a horizontal section of 1,602 feet. Hasim said this required careful preplanning and geomechanics studies that allowed for an efficient design to prevent problems with artificial lift.
“Several thermal and non-thermal pilots have been commissioned and the results so far are encouraging, setting a technological roadmap for our plans in the production of this important and strategic reserve,” she adds. “The North Kuwait Heavy Oil Project is progressing rapidly, and the first commercial quantity of heavy oil crude will be available in 2016/2017.”
The development of North Kuwait’s northern fields was announced in March 2010 with an intended drilling program for 200 wells to tap heavy crude, as production from the massive Burgan field in the South declines from peak production.
The recovery of the heavy crude is challenging, and requires thermal treatment via steamflooding as well as non-thermal sepration expertise. Hashim confirmed that in order to develop the expertise needed to complete the field development project, KOC will learn from other successful heavy crude projects.
“We constantly engage in benchmarking processes, and have liaised with different countries, companies and organizations that produce heavy oil all over the world, learning from them and expediting our learning curve,” she said.
KOC is expected to spend an estimated $3.0 billion on remedial projects over the next number of years related to the Kuwaiti Oil Lakes, remnants of the Gulf War in 1991 when the retreating Iraqi forces set fire to the oil
wells in the northern fields.
