Aggressive Fracturing Treatments in Horizontal Wells: Benefits and Pitfalls

Daneshy, Ali

doi:10.2118/187147-ms

Cited by 6 publications

References 10 publications

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Frac Hit Induced Production Losses: Evaluating Root Causes, Damage Location, Possible Prevention Methods and Success of Remediation Treatments, Part II

Rainbolt

Esco

2018

Day 2 Wed, January 24, 2018

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Millions of dollars in production losses are occurring from fracture-driven well-to-well interference (frac hits) in horizontal wells in unconventional play reservoirs. The work presented in SPE 187192 has been continued in this paper with a new case study (Case Study V), data from a pair of Wolfcamp B wells in the Permian Basin. The parent well suffered fracture interference during the child well's stimulation operations, negatively effecting production. The child and parent wells were both completed with the "plug and perf" technique. The parent well was completed with 74 stages while the child well's completion consisted of 105 frac stages. The child well was drilled with a longer lateral and the first 72 stages of the well's fracturing operations caused clear, repeatable pressure changes in the parent well. The data from these two wells is rich in cause and effect and permits compelling observations and conclusions. These findings were then compared to those from Case Studies I-IV, SPE 187192. Detailed plots of the pressure changes superimposed with fracturing data were created and studied to better understand the significance and cause of what was happening to the Case Study V parent well. The shut-in pressure data from the parent well was taken at the intake of the electrical submersible pump (ESP) and recorded in 1-3 minute increments. Both wells have the same number of perf clusters per stage, stage spacing and amount of sand per stage. One-second fracture stimulation data for both completions was available. Case Study V plots and examples from Case Studies I-IV were put side-to-side and back-to-back to quickly view the similarities and differences. Fact-based conclusions were reached regarding causality of fracture-driven communication and interference between these wells. Preface The study for this paper is based on and uses data from nearly 200 individual fracture stimulation stages pumped in five pairs of wells. In order to document and discuss that much information, there are numerous plots and illustrations. While this is perhaps unconventional, it must be pointed out that a paper that is focused on data MUST show the data. Time constraints prevented the inclusion of several additional plots and "Part III" is being planned and is in the works. SPE 187192 (part I), King et al (2017) will be referred to several times and a few of the old plots are shown. There are new plots and observations from Case Studies I-IV.

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Frac Hit Induced Production Losses: Evaluating Root Causes, Damage Location, Possible Prevention Methods and Success of Remediation Treatments, Part II

Rainbolt

Esco

2018

Day 2 Wed, January 24, 2018

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Pre-Loads: Successful Mitigation of Damaging Frac Hits in the Eagle Ford

Whitfield

Watkins

Dickinson

2018

SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition

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Although infill drilling and tighter well spacing have improved the production and economic return for North American Shale leases, these practices have intensified a problematic side effect often referred to as Frac Hits (Jacobs 2017). Frac hits occur when a new ‘child’ well is completed near an already producing well and the frac treatment interacts with the older parent well, usually resulting in either total loss of production or diminished producing capacity (King et al. 2017). In some fields, such as the Haynesville, frac hits have been reported to improve parent well production (Esquivel & Blasingame 2017). However, as these wells produce longer in to their life cycle, that positive impact is less certain to result in a long-term recovery improvement. In the past, the loss of the parent well was not associated with a significant loss in production compared to the new wells. However, with increasingly larger completion designs executed on wells spaced ever closer together, the impact of frac hits has grown substantially in the past few years (Daneshy 2017; Rainbolt & Esco 2018). Frac hits are not a new phenomenon in the development of North America's Shale fields. Usually first encountered by operators during the progression from Hold By Production (HBP) to infill drilling, they have been widely documented and studied over the past 6+ years. However, apart from avoiding frac hits entirely through a fully integrated field development plan, the existing industry literature does not provide a flexible, repeatable, cost effective solution to mitigating frac hits. Refracs have been discussed for parent wells next to the new infills, but economics have been difficult to justify on more recently completed wells with larger completion designs, and refracs do not address the challenge of third or higher generation infill activities where several wells are at risk of being frac hit. This document will cover the development of the frac hit mitigation technique that the authors developed in their company's Eagle Ford acreage and which is now employed as standard practice for all infill completion campaigns in both the Eagle Ford and Permian.

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Model for Asymmetric Hydraulic Fractures with Non-Uniform Stress Distribution

Liu

Luo

et al. 2019

SPE Oklahoma City Oil and Gas Symposium

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Engineers commonly expect symmetric fracture wings in multiple transverse fracture horizontal wells (MTFHWs). Microseismic surveys have shown asymmetric hydraulic fracture grow away from the recent fractured wells and grow towards previous produced wells. It might be caused by the elevated stress around the recently fractured well and the reduced stress near the depleted wells. This paper presents the asymmetric fracture growth observed by the microseismic events and develops a simple model to simulate the fracture propagation and its impact on the well productivity. Motivated by the microseismic observations, we developed a simple fracture model to simulate asymmetric fracture wings that can capture the behavior of fracture hits between two adjacent horizontal fractured wells. Also, we developed a model to estimate the productivity of a well with asymmetric fractures. The newly developed fracture model shows that the fracture can grow asymmetrically if the horizontal well is located where stress field is different between its two sides. The productivity model for asymmetric hydraulic fractures quantifies the penalty to the well performance. Results provide a reason why asymmetric fractures happen and that they do penalize well performance. Our models suggest the importance of fracturing under balanced stress distribution which benefits the long-term production. Use of the model suggested an optimized hydraulic fracturing treatment design will improve the overall performance of multiple parallel wells that minimizes or avoids asymmetric fracture wings. The fracture propagation model and productivity model provide simple, but profound, guidelines for the well pad management, including well spacing, stage planning and spacing, completion and production order.

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Aggressive Fracturing Treatments in Horizontal Wells: Benefits and Pitfalls

Cited by 6 publications

References 10 publications

Frac Hit Induced Production Losses: Evaluating Root Causes, Damage Location, Possible Prevention Methods and Success of Remediation Treatments, Part II

Frac Hit Induced Production Losses: Evaluating Root Causes, Damage Location, Possible Prevention Methods and Success of Remediation Treatments, Part II

Pre-Loads: Successful Mitigation of Damaging Frac Hits in the Eagle Ford

Model for Asymmetric Hydraulic Fractures with Non-Uniform Stress Distribution

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