Saudi Arabian nonassociated natural gas development programs are continuously expanding to meet the local energy demand. The challenges faced in the new development areas attributed to reservoir heterogeneity, high-pressure and high temperature, and low reservoir quality have been thoroughly evaluated and encountered with the application of fit-for-purpose novel technologies and the implementation of best practices. Drilling of horizontal wells and completing those with multistage fracturing (MSF) have been a preferred practice to obtain and maintain high and sustainable production and to help marginal wells become economical. One main focus area for the enhancement and improvement of stimulation efficiency is fracturing fluid additives. Regardless of the base gel and loading used, the additives play a major role in acid etching or proppant transport in heterogeneous reservoirs to attain uniform stimulation, maintain high fracture conductivity, and accelerate post-fracture cleanup. Because of reservoir heterogeneity and the extent of permeability development and net pay sections that need to be stimulated in a horizontal well, ensuring uniform fracture propagation, acid penetration, and proppant placement, effective completion and stimulation design is necessary. The location of perforations is important and can impact fracture growth while the diversion additives in the fracturing fluid ensure that perforation clusters are all treated sequentially, assist and enhance acid interaction or proppant distribution inside the fracture, and increase the effective fracture geometry, contact area, and overall conductivity. The paper highlights the importance of perforation placement and discusses in detail a novel diversion technology and control pressure pumping (CPP) mechanism successfully applied in several high-pressure, high temperature condensate tight gas reservoirs to optimize breakdown, acid penetration, proppant transport, and maximize stimulated volume and well productivity. Several wells have been acid fractured, matrix acidized, or proppant fractured using novel diversion materials and are discussed in this paper. Various diagnostics used to verify stimulation coverage include running production and temperature logs, conducting distributed acoustic and temperature measurements, as well as pumping nonradioactive tracers. Although these wells exhibited a wide range of porosity and permeability variation along the drilled section, each perforated interval was effectively stimulated using novel diversion materials. Compared to offset wells where diversion was not used, wells treated with novel diversion showed a distinct difference in acid etching or proppant placement profiles, thereby confirming their superiority. The total production rate observed was much higher in the novel diversion applied wells.

While the industry has many recommendations on fishing operations and setups, a process of the selection for overshots, and a streamline when similar fish or wellbore conditions has not been discussed before. This paper will review a challenging case history well, with multiple fishes of the same type, and the lessons learned on selections with varying wellbore conditions. Taking into measure was the learnings from the post well review, and the creation of a flowchart to better optimize the selection of fishing Bottom Hole Assembly's (BHA). This incorporated the coordination of charts’ creation with the service provider, ensured a robust process with multiple choices and supportive reasoning for selection. The well primarily discussed in this paper, was a horizontal well in a tight gas field. The knowledge gained from the multiple fishes in the case study horizontal well, streamlined future choices in BHA selections for similar fishes. As an operator, having the flowchart encourages more discussion with the service company, and supports the engineers in planning operations.

The Granite Wash continues to be a prolific hydrocarbon producer, with over 1600 wells drilled during the last 10 years. During 2012 and 2013 an extensive development program was initiated by one operator in which 144 wells were drilled and completed with multi-stage hydraulically stimulated horizontal wells. Many of these wells utilized various types of completion diagnostics to: (1) evaluate vertical and horizontal communication within the Granite Wash, (2) identify potential horizontal loading problems and (3) diagnose long-term fracture fluid movement. This paper reviews more than two years of water-based frac fluid tracer data. It details how the individual tracers were used to quantify communication between various layers of the Granite Wash and between nearby completed offset wells. Also, toe stage frac fluid recoveries were compared to identify wells that appeared to be constrained. Data will be presented documenting specific cases of inter-well and inter-zonal communication. This will include both offset wells that had been on production prior to the fracturing treatment and offset wells that had been recently drilled.Extended sampling of individual fluid tracers can be an extremely useful tool in explaining production anomalies as they occur. On this project, the operator was able to identify the source of production changes and determine the best well intervention technique to economically increase production.

Linn Energy employed adjacent laterals; the upper lateral targeting the Carr Granite Wash and the lower lateral targeting the Britt Granite Wash to determine if there was fracture stimulation overlap between the two intervals. It was known from geological analysis that the two zones were separated by a Clay rich interval (Caldwell section). The discussion deals with the fracturing between zones, and what type of communication remains after the stimulation treatment has been completed. Various completion techniques were employed including Zipper Fracs, Volume adjustments, Perforation Density and phasing changes, and pump rate variations to determine if the fracture geometry would be affected by these changes. Treatment evaluations were done using the examination of Microseismic results in conjunction with pumping treatment data and pressure data from multiple offset locations. This paper reviews the methodology employed as well as the results of pressure analysis and Microseismic mapping results to determine if the Caldwell barrier could be overcome by the Fracture Stimulation or if adequate drainage of both the Britt and Carr zones would require individual laterals.

Completion diagnostics have been applied in Granite Wash wells in the Texas panhandle and western Oklahoma for decades. When applied in horizontal wells, these diagnostic data have shown that the perforation clusters are not always evenly stimulated. In an effort to place the perforation clusters across desirable reservoir targets, engineered perforating has been utilized. In order to target desirable natural fracture swarms and higher porosity streaks, an effort was made to identify those features by taking advantage of the propensity for completion fluid leakoff to occur into those features immediately prior to pumping cement. If enough differentiation is evident using some form of completion diagnostics, then those features that capture the traced completion fluid can serve as targets for the subsequent engineered perforating. In this paper, gamma-emitting particulate tracers were mixed in the spacer fluid used to separate the drilling mud from the cement with the expectation that this traced spacer fluid would leak off into some of these targeted features, and those tracer captured features could then be identified with a spectral gamma ray logging tool after pumping cement. Subsequently, the proppant used to hydraulically fracture those same intervals could be traced with other gamma-emitting particulate tracers to determine if those targeted features had been successfully fractured. This paper will compare and contrast the spectral gamma ray logs run after circulating the traced spacer fluid and cement and after pumping the traced hydraulic fracturing treatments. The diagnostic data will also be compared with well performance data for these wells.