A new form of horizontal well completion technology is the main objective of this research. This paper presents a mathematical model to evaluate the performance of a horizontal well during infinite-acting flow period with tapered completion strategy. The dimensionless pressure solution for a horizontal well exhibiting infinite acting flow was used to compute total wells pressure drop per unit rate function as a single tubing component and then tapered tubing component. Three cases were on spotlight which are single completions, two step tapered completions and three step tapered completions to appositely evaluate their comparative performance. Sensitivity analysis was carried out by investigating the influences of wellbore properties assuming a homogenous reservoir that produces a single-phase fluid at a constant rate. The results show that the tapered horizontal well outperforms that of the conventional on the basis of total pressure drop per unit flow rate per completion. The longer the length of the tapered horizontal well sequentially with corresponding increase in wellbore radii, the lower the pressure drop per unit flow rate obtained and also longer time to end infinite-activity. The maximum well length for any completion strategy is dictated chiefly by wellbore skin and reservoir anisotropy. An excellent performance is achieved when the horizontal well is tapered yielding even much more by varying the parameters of length and radii. It is therefore evident that tapered horizontal well completions presents a lot more capabilities in extending the period of oil production in spite of reservoir size and nature of external boundaries.

Keywords : Infinite-Acting, Horizontal Well, Performance, Tapered, Completion Efficiency.