How can the water cut be reduced for the horizontal

wells??

Depends where it is and what is causing it. If it is coning, you can try to
reduce the drawdown by choking the well back so the cone will recede. If
its not a cone, then you are extremely limited.

If the horizontal is cased, you can try running either a scab liner or use
swellable packers to pack it off. Trying to cement it is risky because of
gravity

Here’s some additional information on methods for water shutoffs.

Generally, there are two main types of water control methods (other than
choke management) in horizontal wells: mechanical and chemical
method. These two methods can be used individually or in combination.

1. Mechanical methods
Mechanical methods can be achieved by using packers to seal the water
excess zone. Packers can be classified as expandable packers and non-
expandable packers; expandable packers have inflatable elements which
are designed to expand in wellbore and provide isolation. After inflating,
the volume of the inflatable elements will in- crease until fully occupy the
gap to provide isolation. Most of the expandable packers are retrievable;
however, sometimes they are combined with cement plugs to provide
permanent sealing in open holes.

Expandable packers. Expandable packers include: inflatable packer,

bridge plug, swell packer, straddle packer, inflat- able cement retainer,
and expandable tubular. The inflatable processes are triggered by
different mechanisms. The inflation of inflatable packers is achieved by
the expansion of rubber blades. The swelling of swell packer is caused by
in contact with fluids in wells. Some expandable packers such as straddle
packers with two inflatable elements and a nipple can be used as both
zonal isolation tools and injection tools.
The two inflatable elements provide zonal isolation, while the treatment
fluid can be injected from the nipples in between. Inflatable cement
retainers have similar function. It provides zonal isolation by inflatable
elements for later chemical treatment and chemical injection into the
target zone.

One special expandable packer is external casing packer. It is frequently

used with liners or sand screens and set at intervals along the openhole. It
has an inflatable section which is the rubber bladder over a section of
casing. Once this section inflates, the annular will be sealed by the
packers.

Non-expandable packer. Cement packer is a commonly used non-

expandable packer in vertical wells. Applied in horizontal wells may face
with uncompleted sealing in annu- lus due to the gravity effect.

2. Chemical methods
Chemical sealing materials can penetrate into the matrix or small fissures
where the mechanical packers cannot reach to shut off the excess water in
some cases. Therefore, chemical methods are required in many
situations.

Some of the plugging agents that have been used for water shutoff in
wells are in-situ gels, polymers/swelling agents

In-situ gels: The strength of gels ranges from weak to strong, which
depends on the compositions of gelation systems and reservoir
environments. The gelling process of in-situ gel occurs in a reservoir by
injecting the mixture of polymer and crosslinker into a reservoir.
Polymers/swelling agent: A polymer is a common material that is used
in conformance or profile control. It’s often used as a mobility control
agent rather than plugging agent due to its low strength. However,
polymer can swell in the presence of a swelling agent which can be water,
or hydrocarbon. This plugging agent causes a disproportional
permeability reduction and can be designed for different resistance to oil
and water flow. Usually the resistance to water flow is higher than oil
flow.

Water swelling polymer: This is a crosslinked polyacrylamide super

absorbent polymer. This material can absorb 5 to 500 times its own
weight, depending on the brine composition and salinity. The size of the
material can vary from a few micrometers to a few millimeters.

Bottomline, all water shutoff method selections are always dependent on

the completion types; inflatable or non-inflatable mechanical packers can
isolate water production, or can provide a temporary or permanent
isolation for a later chemical treatment.

Chemical materials can also be used, not only as plugging agents but also
as temporary zonal isolation packers. Mechanical methods are always
used to do wellbore treatment, while chemical methods can deal with
near-wellbore issues, matrix problems or when needed for maximum
penetration into fracture networks. Mechanical methods generally cost
more than chemical methods..