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Hydraulic Fracturing Section 12

Designing Wells for Fracturing

12.

Designing Wells for Fracturing

The biggest single influence on the feasibility of the hydraulic fracturing process is the design of the well, including its completion and perforations. The influence of perforations, and how they can be designed to maximise the effectiveness of hydraulic fracturing, will be discussed in section 13. In this section, we will discuss the philosophy and impact on well planning and design, of the hydraulic fracturing process. On a wider scale, we shall discuss the influence hydraulic fracturing can have on field development, whilst on the smaller scale we shall discuss how to plan individual wells for fracturing.

12.1

How Many Wells do I Need to Drill?

The answer is, not nearly as many as you think. Very few operating companies plan a field development with stimulation in mind. Hydraulic fracturing is the most effective form of stimulation, but it is also the type is most often restricted by the design of a well. It is also often thought of as a high-risk operation, but most Engineers who do not have first hand experience with the process. Consequently, the Engineers who design the development of a field are either not aware of the benefits of fracturing, or not aware of the chances of a successful treatment. If a well is planned with hydraulic fracturing in mind, it is relatively realistic to expect at least double the production from the treated well, compared to the untreated well. In many cases, fracturing will produce a production increase significantly greater than this. In addition, often production targets can be met at significantly lower drawdowns, which can have a tremendous impact on reservoir management, and can often prevent or significantly delay the onset of water production from a WOC or gas production from a gas cap. So if an operating company can produce at least twice as much oil from a given well, what does this mean for reservoir development plans? It means that the operating company needs to drill fewer wells, which can result in tremendous cost savings. Especially offshore, where the need for fewer wells may even eliminate the need for entire platforms. Obviously, in highly faulted reservoirs, each pool will need at least one well, but in reservoirs that would ordinarily require several wells, it is not unreasonable to expect to eliminate half of these. Injection wells can also be fractured very effectively. An additional benefit to fracturing is that each zone in an injection well can be individually treated, allowing a specific fracture, of a specific conductivity, to be placed in each zone. This allows the Reservoir Engineer to custom design the injectivity profile of an injection well, to meet the requirements of long term pressure maintenance. Traditionally, the only sector of the industry that has a profound understanding of what can be achieved by fracturing, is the tight gas sector. Most of the tight gas wells drilled have to be fractured, otherwise they would not be economic. In a lot of cases, these wells have to be fractured, or they would not produce at all. In these areas, the tight gas operating companies are totally dependent upon the hydraulic fracturing process for the success or failure of their field developments. Yet companies keep drilling wells, and keep developing tight gas fields, and keep fracturing them so the process must be successful. If it works for tight gas wells, why not for oil wells or even high permeability gas wells? After all, the basic process is the same, the equipment is the same, the proppants are the same and the fluids are the same. The only thing that varies from well to well is the mount of each of these items we use and the relative quantities in which they are used. Obviously, the potential percentage production increase from fracturing a tight gas well is much greater than for fracturing a high permeability oil well. However, which generates the most revenue

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Hydraulic Fracturing Section 12

Designing Wells for Fracturing

increasing the production from a tight gas well from 10 mscfpd to 500 mscfpd, or increasing the production of an oil well from 5,000 bopd to 10,000 bopd? Both of these production increases are realistically achievable.

12.2

The Best Wells are also the Best Candidates for Fracturing

Too often, hydraulic fracturing is seen as a last-try-process, used because the company has a bad well and needs to do something with it. Unfortunately, in most circumstances, hydraulic fracturing cannot turn a bad well into a good well, unless the only reason for the low production is a large skin factor. In all cases, the reservoir must have some potential in order for the full benefits of the fracturing process to be realised. In the late 1980s, in the a company operating in the Danish sector of the North Sea, began developing a new field. The oil was held in the highly same highly productive chalk formations, which were responsible for the huge Ekofisk development, just across the border in the Norwegian sector. The traditional way to develop these reservoirs was to drill deviated or S-shaped wells through the chalks and then perform an acid frac. However, the operating company and its partners (which included some major US operating companies) - realised that this may not be the best method. Over a series of wells and a number of years, the operating company perfected a method for developing their reservoirs that involved drilling long horizontal wells, each of which would have between 8 and 15 fracs placed along its length, depending upon the length of the productive section. Each of the horizontal liners was cemented in place a new bold approach in itself and selectively perforated to control the point of fracture initiation (see section 13). These wells were also fitted with a special completion, which allowed individual access to each of these perforated intervals. Then, over a period of 4 to 8 weeks, each of these zones would be hydraulically fractured. As time progressed and the technology improved, this time decreased, but still took weeks, rather than days, to frac each well. In one well, the company successfully pumped over 13 million lbs of proppant, a record for a well that has only recently been passed. How much did this cost? A lot. Each well drilled and completed in this fashion typically cost 3 times what a conventional well would cost, in a part of the world where drilling costs were already huge. However, each well was also producing between 4 and 6 times what the typical conventional well was producing. In addition, the conventional acid fractured wells, had to have the acid fracture repeated every 18 months to 2 years, as the highly plastic chalk formations slowly deformed into the fractures. However, this was not the case with the propped fractures, resulting in greatly reduced future expenditure.

12.3

Designing Wells for Fracturing

The best time to fracture a well is right after it has been drilled and cased before the completion has been run. This is another reason why it is important to consider the implications of fracturing whilst planning the well. In general, completions act to restrict what can be done with a treatment, and can often eliminate the fracturing option entirely. Completions can limit fracturing operations for the following reasons:i) Pressure limitations. Fractures are created by pressure, and as a result abnormally high pressures can be generated by the treatment. Often, completions are not designed to withstand this loading. Although it is often possible to reduce this effect by placing pressure on the annulus, many are completed with two or more packers, eliminating the effectiveness of annulus pressure.

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Hydraulic Fracturing Section 12 ii)

Designing Wells for Fracturing

Temperature limitations. The pumping of a cool frac fluid will cause the completion to shrink. Sometimes, the completion can shrink so much that the tubing can sting out of packers. The effect of the extra pressure acts to make this effect even worse. Completion jewelry. Items such as sub-surface safety valves, gas lift mandrels and sliding side doors can often take significantly less differential pressure than the actual completion itself.

iii)

It should be noted that the above three limitations can be eliminated by the use of coiled tubing in the fracturing process. iv) Multiple zones. Often, wells are completed with multiple sets of perforations. Whilst it is possible to treat multiple zones at the same time, it is generally a much more complex process, which requires more equipment and more materials (treating two identical zones requires twice the pump rate, and twice the volume of proppants and fluids. It may require significantly more than twice the hydraulic horsepower, as the friction pressure will rise by significantly more than this factor).

In short, if the well can be fractured before it is completed, all the limitations imposed by the completion can be eliminated. However, doing this requires a degree of forward planning, faith in the fracturing process and increased up-front expenditure. Fracturing before completion allows the perforate-stimulate-isolate method to be employed:1. Perforate The individual zone is perforated, allowing each zone to be fractured with the optimum treatment. By carefully positioning the perforations, the point of fracture initiation can be controlled. The fracture treatment is pumped either down the casing or through a frac string. The zone is isolated by setting either a sand fill or a bridge plug.

2. Stimulate

3. Isolate

Repeat steps 1 to 3 as often as necessary, moving from the bottom to the top of the well. Obviously, this process can take a lot longer than the conventional drill and complete process. However, the extra cost is more than offset by the substantially increased production from these wells. If the well cannot be fractured prior to completion, then the completion should be designed with fracturing as a potential scenario. Packers and tubing jewelry should be designed to withstand the pressures of fracturing. Seal assemblies should be long enough to cope with the cooldown. Zones should be as isolated as possible. Of course, all this requires substantial extra investment, which has to be justified purely on the basis of faith in the fracturing process. However, in case after case, field development after field development, this initial expenditure has proved its worth.

References
Nagel, W.B, et al.: An Integrated Team Approach for Improving Company-Wide Stimulation Design and Quality Control, paper SPE 26142, presented at the SPE Gas Technology Symposium, Calgary, June 1993. Cipolla, C.L., Bernsten, B.A., Moos, H., Ginty, W.R., and Jensen, L.: Case Study of Hydraulic Fracture Completions in Horizontal Wells, South Arne Field Danish North Sea, paper SPE 64383, presented at the SPE Asia-Pacific Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition, Brisbane, October 2000.

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Hydraulic Fracturing Section 12

Designing Wells for Fracturing

Owens, K.A., Pitts, M.J., Klampferer, H.J., and Kreuger, S.B.: Practical Considerations for Well Fracturing in the Danish Chalk, paper SPE 25058, presented at the SPE European Petroleum Conference, Cannes, France, November 1992. Schubarth, S.K., Yeager, R.R., and Murphy, D.W.: Advanced Fracturing and Reservoir Description Techniques Improves Fracturing in......, paper SPE 39777, presented at the SPE Permian Oil Basin Oil and Gas Recovery Conference, Midland TX, 1998 Voneiff, G.W., and Holditch, S.A.: An Economic Assessment of Applying of Applying Recent Advances in Fracturing Technology to Six Tight Gas Formations, paper SPE 24888, presented at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Washington DC, October 1992. Stewart, B.R, et al.: Economic Justification for Fracturing Moderate to High Permeability Formations in Sand Control Environments, paper SPE 30470, presented at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Dallas, October 1995. Conway, M.W., et al.: Expanding Recoverable Reserves Through Refracturing, paper SPE 14376, presented at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Las Vegas, October 1985. Church, D.C., and Peters, B.A.: Improved Fracturing Technique Yields Increased Production Potential, paper SPE 17045, presented at the SPE Eastern Regional Meeting, Pittsburgh, October 1997

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