Kuwait Leading O&G’s Preference For Reservoir Stimulation Technology

Within the last few years, different stimulation techniques have become the reigning trend in Oil & Gas: water injection/fracking, matrix acidising and steam drive, to name a few, are today’s hot topics, with each production company looking to maximise how much their wells give.

Many different technologies have been employed to this end, but in Kuwait, the centre of oil production in the Middle East, companies have shown a strong partiality to one technology only.

Perhaps the most notable company to do this is the national, state-owned, Gulf Drilling and Maintenance Company (GDMC). Over the last several months GDMC has carried out successful operations of the technology in a trial capacity, which has attracted the attention of engineers from other organisations as well. One notable aspect was success where other providers had previously failed.

The technology in question, Powerwave, is patented by Wavefront Technology Solutions Inc. It works by generating a fluid pressure pulse that causes a momentary elastic flexure of the pore structure inside soil and rock, pushing out the contained oil. As a fairly new technique, approved just over a year ago, Powerwave is still finding its bearings and whilst it doesn’t currently hold a significant market share, it is predicted that at least GDMC will use it in its projects of 20% market hold. In late July, it was announced that Powerwave was used in 15 of Kuwait’s 250 wells requiring stimulation.

Dashboard believes Kuwait’s willingness to accept new methods is due to its desperate situation with depleting oil resources. The country is struggling to keep up its current production rate and is looking at any potential solutions. Another problematic factor for Kuwait are oil spills, which have further reduced the amount of oil making it to the retail point.

With the direction that the worldwide oil economy is headed, Dashboard can see other countries experiencing the same problems as Kuwait in the future. Because of this, Dashboard believes it is incredibly important to monitor all progress stimulation technologies.