Diversion - Be Careful What You Ask For

Abstract

Success of a fracture stimulation treatment depends upon complete coverage of all targeted intervals. Diversion techniques are being applied in new well completions to achieve greater cluster treatment efficiency and to access additional rock. The objective of this study is to characterize diversion and to utilize near-wellbore diagnostics to determine the effectiveness of diversion. Multiple basins are included in this study, incorporating a variety of drilling and completion practices. Proppant tracing and temperature logging provide near-wellbore diagnostics to evaluate the new rock contacted as a result of diversion. Tracers injected during the treatment at various intervals before and after diversion can be used to determine cluster efficiency as well as the overall changes to a stage as a result of the diversion. Temperature logging is used to determine cooling effects of the treatment and is correlated back to the near-wellbore proppant coverage. The combination of multiple diagnostics provides additional confirmation of the treatment coverage or in some cases the lack thereof. The results of this study show examples of both effective and ineffective diversion. Effective near-wellbore diversion is defined as diversion that results in accessing clusters that were previously not stimulated or under-stimulated. In many cases the surface treating pressure response due to diversion does not correlate to its effectiveness. Optimizing the design and deployment of the diversion process often results in improvement of treatment effectiveness. The results of this study are grouped by Anadarko Basin, Permian Basin, Eagle Ford, and Williston Basin and show the effectiveness of a variety of diversion techniques. Through a combination of diagnostic techniques, diversion is evaluated on new well completions. Over 30 wells are included in this study across multiple basins. The overall stage coverage is evaluated along with the effectiveness of near-wellbore diversion to achieve this coverage. These learnings can be applied to optimize diversion designs for future wells in these and other basins.

A New Compound Staged Gelling Acid Fracturing Method for Ultra-Deep Horizontal Wells

“…Temporary plugging agents are made from degradable polymers, typically polylactic acid (PLA), which can degrade at the reservoir temperature and leave no residue [ 38 ]. All reported field applications with this type of diverter are in reservoirs less than 100 °C, and only used for plugging the perforation holes during the refracturing [ 39 , 40 , 41 ]. Zhou et al [ 42 ] investigated the filtration characteristic of temporary plugging and the length of filter cake under the condition of different fracture widths.…”