Currently, hydraulic isolation of wells drilled with nonaqueous fluids (NAFs) relies heavily on the elimination of mud from the annuli before the placement of cement. Failure to expel all NAFs will result in residual fluid channels that will compromise well integrity and can even serve as nonproductive communication pathways during subsequent stimulation treatments. To mitigate this risk, an interactive cementing system is presented that is designed to reduce conductivity of the residual mud channels. Although mud removal remains an integral part of the cementing process, this new cement formulation was developed to improve zonal isolation in the case of poor mud removal. The unique cement system reacts with the hydrocarbons present in NAFs, leading to a reduction of channel permeability and mobility. This significantly improves the likelihood of hydraulic isolation. Specialized testing protocols were developed to enable the demonstration of the capabilities of this new system. In addition, API testing methods and analytical techniques were used to optimize the slurry. The development of the new cement system focused on the optimization of the active component concentration to give a favorable interaction with NAF, and at the same time, minimize the effect on cement rheology and mechanical properties. Procedures developed in-house demonstrated that the new system effectively reduces hydraulic conductivity of microannuli as well as channels up to several tenths of inches in size. Zonal isolation laboratory experiments were extrapolated to predict whether the modified channels can withstand the range of differential pressures typically seen between neighboring fracturing stages. This is the most critical operation that the cement sheath would be subject to. Field tests are on-going at the time of writing this manuscript, and the preliminary results will be presented and discussed in this paper.

Successful cement placement in horizontal wellbores requires solutions for several technical challenges. Zonal isolation provided by cement is considered an important factor for efficient stimulation. A cement system was designed and recently introduced in unconventional developments to mitigate hydraulic isolation challenges encountered when cementing horizontal wellbores. Herein, we disclose recent results that show the efficiency of the interactive cementing system (ICS) in both laboratory and field case studies. Specifically, decreased communication between stages and improved production compared to offsets. At the 2018 SPE Annual Technical Conference, Kolchanov et al. described the ICS improving zonal isolation in wells that would otherwise contain mud channels symptomatic of the cleaning methods used in unconventional developments (SPE-191561-MS). The scaled performance tests disclosed in that publication are further evaluated to build on the relationship between the laboratory test and realistic downhole scenarios. Literature data indicate that >30% of stages have communications with previously treated zones. The ICS was shown to eliminate interstage communication during stimulation operations when compared to conventional cement systems. To investigate the effect of the ICS on completion quality, five wells cemented with the ICS and stimulated by multistage hydraulic fracturing were compared with numerous offset wells drilled, cemented, and stimulated during the last 2 years in the same producing zone within a 10-mile radius. The early normalized production data have been analyzed, and they indicate a statistically significant increase of production for the ICS-treated wells. This shows the importance of an integrated approach in well construction process, especially for challenging horizontal wells.