Benguela-Belize-Lobito-Tomboco (BBLT): Uncertainty Resolution in Reservoir Performance Predictions

John Fryters¹, Andy Palfrey¹, Mark Moom², George Williams¹, John Moore³, James Swain², Dharmen Shah¹, and John W. Hidore^1
1Reservoir Management - South African Business Unit, Chevron International E&P, Bellaire, TX
²Deepwater Asset, Chevron International E&P, Lagos, Nigeria
³Asia South BU, Chevron International E&P, Bangkok, Thailand

BBLT was the first of Chevron’s “Big 5” world class projects to come on line. The development consists of six main oil pools in about 1300 ft of water. It is composed of several, deepwater, turbidite-channel complexes of middle-lower Miocene age, vertically stacked and grouped geographically around structural traps, with oil in place estimated at over 1 billion barrels. Oil quality in these prolific reservoirs ranges from intermediate to light (~24-37 API).

A pre-drill program, consisting of 11 development wells, was conducted in 2004 and early 2005 to ramp up oil production and address some of the key subsurface uncertainties. Log and core results from these wells were used to update reservoir models with new structure, sand, fluid contact, SCAL data, etc. From the new models, optimization of the remaining well location targets was conducted. Some of the key lessons learned from this pre-drill program will be demonstrated.

Production from dry tree (compliant piled tower) wells began in January 2006 and from subsea tie-backs in June 2006. Well and reservoir performance has been excellent with oil production averaging ~160,000 bopd since January 2007. This talk will include observations from the first year of production regarding reservoir performance and connectivity, offer insights into appropriate reservoir modeling techniques and lessons learned in the development of deep water reservoirs.

AAPG International Conference and Exhibition, Cape Town, South Africa 2008 © AAPG Search and Discovery