Kuwait Oil Company

The Kuwait Integrated Digital Field (KwIDF) is an intelligent oil field platform that integrates artificial intelligence (AI), advanced data analytics, and a management-by-exception framework. This platform aligns with Kuwait Oil Company's (KOC) digitalization strategy by significantly enhancing operational efficiency, sustainability, and resilience in oil production. KwIDF enables objective detection of production anomalies through comprehensive real-time data (RTD) analytics, facilitating timely interventions and informed decision-making. This abstract highlights four real-world use cases from active oil fields in Kuwait, showcasing how data-driven methodologies delivered operational improvements: Well-0001 (T1): Identified as producing gas exclusively, deviating from expected liquid output.Well-0002: Showed significant variance from historical production benchmarks.Well-0003: Displayed irregular flow measurements, suggesting impaired operations.Well-0004: Experienced unexplained production decline despite equipment operating within normal parameters. Targeted interventions based on these insights included zone adjustments, historical production evaluations, workover operations, and real-time decision-making. The platform employed advanced analytical techniques such as K-means clustering for production grouping, statistical process control (SPC) for adaptive benchmarking, principal component analysis (PCA) for managing multivariate data, and linear regression (LR) with signal normalization for predictive modeling. As a result, the platform recovered an estimated 2,000 to 2,700 barrels per day across the four wells, demonstrating substantial operational and economic benefits. Additionally, KwIDF enhanced safety by reducing manual interventions, increased manpower productivity through automation, and promoted operational excellence through predictive decision-making. Further analysis revealed a broader optimization potential, identifying 308,752 barrels/day as recoverable lost production across 1,258 wells, and 183,414 barrels/day as actionable opportunities across 854 wells. In summary, these use cases validate how AI-driven tools and analytics within KwIDF have improved production efficiency, enabled timely action, and uncovered untapped potential in mature oil fields. This approach directly supports the theme of "Pathways to an Energy Future for All," offering scalable, impactful solutions for energy sector resilience and innovation.

This paper presents the successful application of advanced tubular patch technology as a rigless, cost-effective solution to restore production and mitigate tubing integrity leaks in Sabriyah field, North Kuwait. The scope includes addressing ESP-related failures caused by downhole circulation issues, reducing costly rig workover operations, and demonstrating how this approach restored well productivity, minimized downtime, and provided long-term reliability while maintaining full-bore access for future interventions. To tackle persistent tubing integrity leaks above the ESP discharge, a multidisciplinary asset team conducted detailed well screening based on ESP performance, tubing condition, and commercial oil potential. Instead of traditional rig workover and tubing replacement, an advanced tubular patch system was selected. The system consists of a blank pipe with hydraulically activated metal-to-metal sealing elements at both ends to isolate leaking intervals. The rigless intervention was designed to restore zonal isolation while preserving tubing bore. Pre-job planning, candidate well selection, and execution strategies ensured successful deployment across multiple wells. The tubular patch system was successfully deployed in nine wells, isolating tubing leaks and restoring well integrity without requiring costly rig-based workovers. The intervention delivered a combined production restoration of approximately 3,800 BOPD, while preventing more than 200,000 bbl of deferred oil that would have been lost during extended downtime awaiting rig scheduling. In total, about 300 ft of tubular patches were installed, leading to cost savings exceeding USD 16 million compared to conventional tubing replacement operations. Furthermore, the technology ensured large-bore access for future ESP interventions and well surveillance. The case demonstrated that tubular patch applications can provide a sustainable and repeatable solution for mitigating tubing-related ESP failures, significantly improving asset uptime and reducing operational costs. Based on this success, KOC has expanded the deployment of tubular patches across Sabriyah and other fields to address similar challenges. This paper presents the first large-scale field application of tubular patch technology in Kuwait, demonstrating its effectiveness as a rigless solution for ESP-related tubing leaks and eliminating costly rig workovers. The results include significant production restoration, deferred oil savings, and multi-million-dollar cost reductions. By integrating innovative technology with systematic candidate selection, this case sets a new benchmark for extending ESP run life, enhancing artificial lift performance, and optimizing well integrity management in mature fields.

The success of polymer flooding in harsh reservoir environments hinges on a range of critical parameters: in-situ oil viscosity, mobile oil saturation, reservoir temperature, conformance, injectivity, shear rate, and complex brine chemistry (e.g., salinity, iron, and divalent ions). This paper explores the game-changing potential of polymer flooding through a series of cutting-edge advanced lab-to-field case studies utilizing high-TDS produced water. By combining rigorous polymer screening, smart surveillance and adaptive field strategies, the study reveals how technical and geological challenges were turned into opportunities which unlock substantial value in Kuwait's geologically complex, heterogeneous carbonate and sandstone reservoirs through innovative, field-proven approaches. A data-driven workflow was created to support the selection, evaluation and deployment of polymers for flooding in challenging reservoir environments (high salinity, hardness, and temperature). Stable synthetic polymers were meticulously screened through laboratory and core flooding tests using high-TDS produced water to ensure stability under harsh environment. High-resolution, history-matched simulations used to develop pre-pilot strategies. Single-well Long-Term-Polymer-Injectivity-Tests (LTPITs) were executed across multiple reservoirs to assess injectivity, in-situ behavior, and techno-commercial feasibility (rates/throughput) under matrix conditions. Lessons learned enabled proactive challenge mitigation. Simulations were performed using calibrated/history matched model with LTPIT to design commercial polymer flooding and economic assessments. Innovative polymer screening and laboratory testing identified synthetic polymers containing 20–50% ATBS and molecular weights between 5–18 million Daltons as thermal, chemical and mechanical stability under extreme reservoir conditions (upto 270,000 ppm of TDS, 40,000 ppm of hardness and 210°F temperature). Core flood tests using high-TDS injection water demonstrated these polymers’ potential to increase oil recovery and accelerate oil production in 2-100cp oil viscosity reservoirs. Field trials through LTPITs established polymer long-term injectivity under matrix conditions, techno-commercial viability (injection rates / throughput), in-situ polymeric rheological parameters (viscosity / concentration / shear rate), resistance factor (RF), and residual resistance factor (RRF). Lessons from each LTPIT successfully addressed to convert challenges into opportunities in subsequent pilots. The results of phase commercial simulation demonstrated enhanced oil recovery, faster production rates and reduced water cuts compared to conventional waterflooding. Additionally, economic evaluations revealed attractive unit technical costs and a significantly improved net present value (NPV), reinforcing the feasibility and commercial potential of deploying polymer flooding to unlock substantial value in Kuwait's harsh reservoir environments.

In this case study, we present the operational and well delivery experiences from the Jurassic HPHT deep gas drilling campaign, demonstrating geomechanics-aided improvements in the Abdali field, Kuwait. The target sections were drilled through heterogeneous carbonates with varying pressure regimes and mechanical properties. The section hosts limestones susceptible to mechanical instability and dolomitic reservoirs prone to differential sticking. The integrated workflow combines predrill risk assessment, drilling event analysis, geomechanical modeling, mud weight design, real-time monitoring, and operations geomechanics intervention. It resulted in safer, more efficient well delivery, wellbore integrity, and successful logging data acquisition under extreme conditions, delivered substantial time and cost savings, and can be adapted to analogous challenging subsurface environments.