Lower Fars Reservoir - The Case Study



Lower Fars Reservoir - The Case Study

Introduction

Kuwait, located in Middle East, has great natural resources of petroleum abundant within its surface. In fact, today Kuwait can undoubtedly be regarded as one of the major oil producing country possessing oil reserves fourth largest on the planet. The origin of the oil industry in Kuwait is dated back to the era of 1920s. Since then, country has been able to open a number of Oil companies in addition to the organizations that serve as a communicator for these companies. Moreover, the Kuwait has also adapted various new technologies in order to explore different areas of the country to identify and utilize the discoveries in order to improve and enhance the oil production in the company. One of these essential factors is the Lower Fars Formation and the Lower Fars Reservoirs. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze these oil reservoirs and their related aspects. Moreover, this chapter will focus on the background of this reservoir thereby discussing the reservoir and the fluid characteristics for the selected accumulation. The information and data and for this research was utilized from the literature that includes Al-Qabandi, 1995; Al Ajmi et al., 2006;Sanyal, 2007; Farouq Ali, 2008; Dusseault et al., 2008; Ahmed et al., 2011. In addition, the Imperial College and the KOC (Kuwait Oil Company) signed a confidential agreement based on which significant data was retrieved from the KOC's database.

Discussion

There are two main units into which the subsurface in the country can be categorized. These include the Hasa Group including Dammam, Radhuma and Rus formations and Kuwait Group including Ghar and Lower Fars formations (Alajmiet al., 2006). It is important to note that the heavy oil used in Kuwait comes from Middle Miocene where it lies in an evaporate sequence that overlies the Iran's Asmari Limestone. The discovery of the oil reserves in northern Kuwait in a well has incorporated a Channel that is complex of mid-Miocene, LF Formation to the hydrocarbon bearing formations. In the northern Kuwait region, the process of Lower Fars Formation actually is a prolific reservoir long established (Al-Bahar, 2004).

Background

The Lower Fars are located in the Ratqa field in Kuwait. The Lower Fars can be regarded as an unconsolidated sandstone reservoir that is both shallow and heterogeneous. Moreover, the reservoir is found to be saturated with the huge oil quantities. These low far reservoirs are situated against the border of Iraq, in northwest of the Kuwait City. The figure 1 below can be viewed for a better understanding of the location of these Reservoirs.

Figure 1: Lower Fars formation Location, Kuwait.

(Source: Research and Technology Group of Kuwait Oil Company)

It was in the year 1978 when the Ratqa Field was first discovered. However, the interesting fact to note is that the field serves as an extension of the Rumalia field, which is associated with the five major northern oil fields, and can undoubtedly be regarded as the most huge and bizarre field ...