Swell Packers: Old Technology, New Applications, Designed, Manufactured, and Run in the Azar Oil Field, Iran

This paper presents an overview of different swelling elastomers and their applications in the oil and gas (upstream) industry and two casestudies on employing swellable packers in the Azar oil field west of Iran. One is water-swellable, and another oil swellable. Sharif University Affiliated Company designed and manufactured these packers and successfully installed them in two wells as a cement assurance and completion packer redundancy, respectively. The challenges for drilling horizontally into the arena of Unconventional formations in North America with nano darcy permeability was extremely difficult. These tight (low permeability) formations must be stimulated with multistage fracture treatments. One of the mostchallenging phases of multistage, horizontal fracture design treatment is ensuring proper zonal isolation. For this to happen, each stage must beisolated. Swell packers, along with Frac. Sleeves have been successfully used in hundreds of wells to provide positive annular barrier duringmultistage fracture treatment. Anticipating the wellbore fluids that come in contact with the swellable elastomer, maximum differentialpressure & temperature required is the main factors in designing the swellable packer. Swell packers have completed and cemented anefficient alternative to cementing highly fractured formations and a reliable backup for Liner Top Packer. Many other applications are alsodiscussed in this paper. This paper may come useful to the local oil and gas industry and international operators active in Iran.

Swell Packers: Old Technology, New Applications, Designed, Manufactured, and Run in the Azar Oil Field, Iran Keywords:

Swellable packer , Swelling elastomers , Multistage , Horizontal fracture , Azar oil field.