Almost three decades have passed since the early exploration of the north Texas, Barnett shale. The Barnett serves as an example study for the shale life cycle. Operators in North America have used the Barnett-shale development as a roadmap for the exploration of new shale plays like the Marcellus, Haynesville, and Eagle Ford, as well as others. Each new shale play is unique in nature with respect to geologic setting, lithology, and production mechanism. It is useful to have a defined strategy for the discovery, development, and decline phases of each individual shale play. The roadmap to shale well-completion designs should include the following key factors: Fracability: capability of the reservoir to be fracture stimulated effectivelyProducibility: capability of the completion plan to sustain commercial productionSustainability: capability of the field development to meet both economic and environmental constraints This paper reviews the evolution and development of completion practices of the major US shale reservoirs in the last two decades and presents a roadmap for effective completion practices for shale stimulation. The completion roadmap uses the history of 16,000 shale frac stages in the Barnett, Woodford, Haynesville, Antrim, and Marcellus shales. Following the map through specific decision points will alter the path for individual shales. These decision points will be influenced by geologic, geochemical, and geomechanical information gathered along the way. The path toward a commercially viable shale play from the early asset- evaluation phase to the late asset maintenance-and-remediation phase evolves from a series of decision trees throughout the process. Information presented in this paper provides a completion engineer with better understanding of the factors involved in shale- play stimulation and provides a methodical approach to select appropriate and optimum solutions that have evolved during the last two decades.

Almost three decades have passed since the early exploration of the north Texas, Barnett Shale. The Barnett serves as an example study for the shale lifecycle. Operators in North America have used the Barnett-shale development as a roadmap for the exploration of new shale plays like the Marcellus, Haynesville, and Eagleford. Each new shale play is unique in nature with respect to geologic setting, lithology, and production mechanism. It is useful to have a defined strategy for the discovery, development, and decline phases of each individual shale play. The roadmap to shale well-completion designs should include the following key factors: Fracability: capability of the reservoir to be fracture stimulated effectivelyProducibility: capability of the completion plan to sustain commercial productionSustainability: capability of the field development to meet both economic and environmental constraints This paper reviews the evolution and development of completion practices of the major USA shale reservoirs in the last two decades and presents a roadmap for effective completion practices for shale stimulation. The completion roadmap uses the history of 16,000 shale frac stages in the Barnett, Woodford, Haynesville, Antrim, and Marcellus shales. Following the map through specific decision points will alter the path for individual shales. These decision points will be influenced by geologic, geochemical, and geomechanical information gathered along the way. The path toward a commercially viable shale play from the early asset-evaluation phase to late asset maintenance-and-remediation phase evolves from a series of decision trees throughout the process. Information presented in this paper provides a completion engineer with better understanding of the factors involved in shale-play stimulation and provides a methodical approach to select appropriate and optimum solutions that have evolved during the last two decades.

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The Deep Dry Utica, also known as the Extensional Utica, is a newly recognized shale play in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The most developed part of the dry gas Utica shale, in Monroe County, OH, is an inexact analogue as it shares limited characteristics with the Deep Dry Utica to its east. Unconventional workflows based on analogue plays often rely on the statistical significance of trends, impossible to exploit when each data point in a new play is unique, and results are unrepeatable. With only the data from a handful wells in the public domain, and a few wells being drilled by operators where the data is still private, understanding the reservoir and geologic complexity of the Deep Dry Utica has eluded most operators. The play has seen early successes and failures, with wells exceeding initial production rates (IP) of 60 MMcf/day and wells so difficult to drill that they were unable to be completed due to financial limitations. Thus, structurally complex shale plays like the Deep Dry Utica with limited data require a new methodology to rapidly move from delineation to development mode. With a limited heterogeneous data set, subsurface modeling and data analytics in conjunction with analogue analysis allow operators to rapidly understand performance indicators, optimize location selection, well spacing, horizontal drilling and completion designs. This paper describes the modeling and analytics-based workflow utilized to unlock commercial viability of the Deep Dry Utica, making the play commercially competitive with Marcellus Shale development. The workflow described in this paper utilizes earth modeling, reservoir and completion modeling and contemporary data analytics techniques to accelerate development. The workflow is demonstrated in a case study from the Deep Dry Utica in Pennsylvania, moving from delineation to commercial development, with less than a dozen data points across 500,000 thousand acres.