Brown Fields Development: Strategies, Challenges, and Opportunities

Kuwait Energy Egypt company is currently operating Area A Field a Brownfield "since 1960" in Eastern Desert, Egypt with unique challenges for redevelopment due to their aging wells, and facilities. This paper explores effective strategies for redeveloping brownfield sites, focusing on three main challenges Infrastructural Upgrades, Reservoir Management and improve the productivity of existing wells. By using of digitalization and data Analytics, understanding, and mitigating risks in field facilities due to facilities bottlenecking, old flowlines, depleted reservoirs with sever sand production also lack of most of data of old wells, high failure rates. This paper provides insights and recommendations to guide decision-makers and practitioners involved in brownfield redevelopment projects. Area A redevelopment strategy first challenge focused on Infrastructural upgrades which required upgrading the existing infrastructure to accommodate improved production techniques by replacing old flowlines by cond. B tubing for cost optimization and construct and modern fit to propose facility at main production area at SHNW and connect all facilities to it to handle the increased production rates. Second challenge is the effective reservoir management as it is a crucial for the redevelopment strategy of Area A field to increase the extraction of oil from these depleted reservoirs by analysis of reservoir characteristics, fluid properties, and production data lead us to produce with pumps below perforations and keep eyes on sand production as well. Last and main challenge in the strategy is improving the productivity of existing wells after completing surveys on all wells with wireline to make checklist with all available data, set time frame to gather all essential missing data, develop the intervention techniques for the re-entries on the old wells with good selection for qualified vendors in critical services like fishing service and materials suppliers, and by applying innovative technologies in well completions to overcome high artificial lift failures frequency environment as a result of wells harsh conditions like using OTP "Unconventional Oversized SRP" and high clearance pump also the integration of digital technologies and data analytics in failure analysis plays a significant role in redevelopment strategy. The redevelopment strategy of Area A has several outcomes such as increased oil recovery from the existing wells from 2000 BOPD till reaching 6500 BOPD, Extended field life by applying innovative reservoir management strategies and technologies result in reduction of well failures and enhanced MTBF more than 415 days and 1.3-day MTTR in 2023. The optimization of existing infrastructure including wells, pipelines, and processing facilities lead to increased operational efficiency, reduced maintenance costs, and improved safety standards. By exploring the strategies outlined in this paper, stakeholders can make informed decisions and successfully redevelop brownfield sites in the oil and gas industry.