Interference Behavior Analysis in Vaca Muerta Shale Oil Development, Loma Campana Field, Argentina

Rimedio, Milena D.; Shannon, Coleen; Monti, Luciano; Lerza, Alejandro; Roberts, Matthew J.; Licitra, Diego; Quiroga, Juan

doi:10.15530/urtec-2015-2154850

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Hydraulic communication has also been seen in Ohio (Kozlowska, et al 2017), Oklahoma (Thompson 2017), Texas (Morales et.al. 2016), Germany (Kessels and Kuck 1995), and Argentina (Rimedio et al 2015). In each of these studies, well-to-well communication occurs when there were connected fracture networks.…”

Section: Engineering and Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating Hydraulic Communication Between Wells During Hydraulic Fracturing Treatments in the Piceance Basin, Colorado, Usa

Ahlert¹,

Simon²,

Brown³

et al. 2018

Geological Society of America Abstracts With Programs

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Oil and gas wells in Colorado had a circular spacing regulation that required wells to be spaced 745 ft (227 m) in diameter apart. Some oil and gas wells in the Piceance Basin experience hydraulic communication, which is when the hydraulic fracturing of one well damages the production of a neighboring well. During hydraulic communication, formation water enters the producing borehole at the front of the pressure wave and must be removed before the well is brought back into production. Several wells that have experienced communication have come back on line, but months later, have not recovered their original production rates. It is known that when communication occurs in this scenario there is an increase in the casing pressure of the pumping well of 400 psi (280 meters of head). During hydraulic communication, the bedrock formation experiences long term damage. To test this hypothesis, MODFLOW is utilized to model a generalized two-well system in which a producing well and hydraulic fracturing well are approximately one mile (1,610 m) apart. Modeling is conducted to test how geologic heterogeneity in aquifer conductivity and specific storage, and engineering parameters including well spacing and hydraulic fracturing injection rates affect the change in hydraulic head between the injection well and the pumping well. By changing these parameters in a sensitivity analysis, it is possible to determine which have the greatest effect on hydraulic communication. Overall, the systems with lower hydraulic conductivity, higher specific storage, and increased well spacing have a decreased probability of well-to-well communication in the Piceance Basin. Hydraulic communication in the Basin is due to geologic heterogeneity of the area. However, for impacted wells, hydraulic communication can cause both unexpected shortterm expenses and permanent economic loss. It is therefore critical to understand the appropriate geological parameters for communication minimization, despite a fairly limited number of occurrences thus far. Additionally, a better understanding of hydraulic communication between wells will provide new knowledge for Colorado regulators to reevaluate their current spacing regulations.

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Section: Engineering and Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating Hydraulic Communication Between Wells During Hydraulic Fracturing Treatments in the Piceance Basin, Colorado, Usa

Ahlert¹,

Simon²,

Brown³

et al. 2018

Geological Society of America Abstracts With Programs

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…, n) [312]. Figure 10 represents a novel desalination design to treat high salinity water in locations where water carries an initial pressure, such as fracking water [323][324][325]. This pressure can be used to run the water through different filters against gravity and push it all the way up to the top of distillation tower.…”

Section: Economic Analysis On Two Case Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking Beyond Energy Efficiency: An Applied Review of Water Desalination Technologies and an Introduction to Capillary-Driven Desalination

Ahmadvand

Abbasi

Azarfar

et al. 2019

Water

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Most notable emerging water desalination technologies and related publications, as examined by the authors, investigate opportunities to increase energy efficiency of the process. In this paper, the authors reason that improving energy efficiency is only one route to produce more cost-effective potable water with fewer emissions. In fact, the grade of energy that is used to desalinate water plays an equally important role in its economic viability and overall emission reduction. This paper provides a critical review of desalination strategies with emphasis on means of using low-grade energy rather than solely focusing on reaching the thermodynamic energy limit. Herein, it is argued that large-scale commercial desalination technologies have by-and-large reached their engineering potential. They are now mostly limited by the fundamental process design rather than process optimization, which has very limited room for improvement without foundational change to the process itself. The conventional approach toward more energy efficient water desalination is to shift from thermal technologies to reverse osmosis (RO). However, RO suffers from three fundamental issues: (1) it is very sensitive to high-salinity water, (2) it is not suitable for zero liquid discharge and is therefore environmentally challenging, and (3) it is not compatible with low-grade energy. From extensive research and review of existing commercial and lab-scale technologies, the authors propose that a fundamental shift is needed to make water desalination more affordable and economical. Future directions may include novel ideas such as taking advantage of energy localization, surficial/interfacial evaporation, and capillary action. Here, some emerging technologies are discussed along with the viability of incorporating low-grade energy and its economic consequences. Finally, a new process is discussed and characterized for water desalination driven by capillary action. The latter has great significance for using low-grade energy and its substantial potential to generate salinity/blue energy.

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Fracturing-to-Production Integrated Completion Sensitivities for Horizontal Well Design in the Vaca Muerta Shale

Pichon

Cafardi

Cavazzoli

et al. 2017

SPE Latin America and Caribbean Petroleum Engineering Conference

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The boom of organic shale plays has revealed the critical need to correctly size hydraulic facture treatments to achieve commercial success in those reservoirs. The right balance must be found between the cost of fracturing and the additional production achieved by increasing the formation-to-wellbore contact area. Such a balance is formation specific and depends on the reservoir properties and local well completion costs. This paper examines a wide range of completion scenarios to evaluate the relationship between hydraulic fracture design, production, and well profitability using numerical simulations to guide completion of horizontal wells in the Vaca Muerta shale. Evaluation of the interaction between completion and production requires an integrated approach including both static (petrophysics, geomechanics, and the characteristics of natural fractures) and dynamic (reservoir fluid, conductivity degradation, and reservoir pressure) properties. The hydraulic fracture geometry is determined using a state of the art simulator that models the physical mechanisms of elastic deformation, leakoff, proppant transport, and the interaction between hydraulic and natural fractures. The explicit description of the hydraulic fracture geometry ensures that any variation in the completion design is consistently taken into account. Hydraulic fracture geometry is then directly fed into a reservoir simulator to evaluate the anticipated production. The resulting production profile is then input to an economic model to assess the profitability of the proposed scenario. The model is based on the latest understanding of the Vaca Muerta shale and is calibrated by reproducing the average historical production of the play. A sensitivity study is performed to investigate the impact of each completion parameter. Proposed sensitivities consider a large range of completion design parameters for a horizontal well, such as the type and volume of fracturing fluid and proppant, number and spacing of perforation clusters, and staging strategies. The sensitivity analysis covers more than 60 completion scenarios over 550 fracturing stages and 1,600 individual hydraulic fractures. All the simulation cases are combined in a database to quantitatively evaluate the impact of completion design over the hydraulic fracture dimensions and production, and highlight its main contributors. Total volume of proppant per well and perforation cluster spacing show a good correlation with production. This production increase can be linked with an increase of the propped surface highlighting the need for the right balance in between fracturing fluid viscosity to enhance transport and the proppant concentration to compensate for total treatment volume. The results of this study provide practical guidelines for optimizing completion of horizontal wells in the Vaca Muerta shale.

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Interference Behavior Analysis in Vaca Muerta Shale Oil Development, Loma Campana Field, Argentina

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Investigating Hydraulic Communication Between Wells During Hydraulic Fracturing Treatments in the Piceance Basin, Colorado, Usa

Investigating Hydraulic Communication Between Wells During Hydraulic Fracturing Treatments in the Piceance Basin, Colorado, Usa

Looking Beyond Energy Efficiency: An Applied Review of Water Desalination Technologies and an Introduction to Capillary-Driven Desalination

Fracturing-to-Production Integrated Completion Sensitivities for Horizontal Well Design in the Vaca Muerta Shale

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