Successful Perforating Deployment in Deep Gas Wells Completed with Permanent Fiber Optic Behind-Casing for Hydraulic Fracturing. A State of the Art in Well Delivery.

Abstract

The scope of this paper is to discuss the methodology to perforate deep High pressure, High Temperature (HPHT) gas wells that are completed with permanent fiber optic behind-casing for hydraulic fracturing operations in Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), the main objective is to show the planning and successful execution of perforating and hydraulic fracturing operations in this new type of completions. The paper will show the enhancement of Well Delivery and the outstanding results in these challenging operations. The paper will start by elaborating on this new type of completions with permanent fiber optic, the benefits, and the challenges associated to perforate the casing while maintaining the integrity and functionality of the fiber optic throughout all the hydraulic fracturing operations. Different orienting tools, gun sizes, shaped charges, explosive types, and gun phasing were evaluated and assessed to achieve the optimum system. Yard tests were done with an actual casing joint and fiber optic. Further, it will discuss the design, planning and successful job execution in one of the new gas wells with 4 fracturing stages completed. Field operations were successfully executed in a deep gas well with 4 frac stages using plug and perf technique, the optimum and novel perforating system allowed to complete a total of 24 perforating runs without any damage to the permanent fiber optic behind-casing, it also allowed to successfully initiate and propagate the fracture in all stages. A final multi finger Caliper log also indicated that there was no tubing damage or deformation across the perforated clusters after milling all the frac isolation plugs. The well was successful delivered to production operations. The concept of perforating and fracturing deep gas wells completed with permanent fiber optic has been proved with substantial benefits, not only for the hydraulic fracturing operations but also for future Well Reservoir Management (WRM) and surveillance activities through the life cycle of the well. Perforating and hydraulic fracturing in wells completed with permanent fiber optic is a novel approach to enhance hydraulic fracturing and well delivery, this is in alignment with the continuous improvement (CI) ideas and the lean thinking across the oil and gas industry. It's easy to replicate in other gas and oil fields, as well as horizontal wells to be hydraulically fractured, it will reduce cost, Health, Safety & Environment (HSE) exposure and will help increase the recovery of hydrocarbon reserves.