Design and optimisation of multi-stage hydraulic fracturing in a horizontal well in a shale gas reservoir in the Cooper Basin, South Australia

2015 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kunakorn Pokalai ◽  
Yang Fei ◽  
Maqsood Ahmad ◽  
Manouchehr Haghighi ◽  
Mary Gonzalez

Multi-stage hydraulic fracturing in horizontal wells is a well-known technology and is a key mechanism for gas recovery from extremely low permeable shale gas reservoirs. Since Australia’s Cooper Basin has a more complex stress regime and higher temperatures when compared to US shale gas formations, the design and optimisation of this technology in the Cooper Basin has not been explored to the authors’ knowledge. The Murteree and Roseneath shale formations in the Cooper Basin are 8,500 ft in depth and have been targets for shale gas production by different oil and gas operators. Deeper zones are difficult to fracture, as fracture gradients are often above 1 psi/ft. In this study, 1D vertical mechanical earth modelling using petrophysical log data was developed. Then, the stress profile was tuned and validated using the minimum horizontal stress from a mini-frac test taken along a vertical well. A 3D hydraulic fracture simulation in a vertical well as developed as a pilot to select the best locations for horizontal drilling. The selection criteria for the best location included the stress regime, gas flow rate and fracture geometry. Then a multi-stage fracture treatment in a horizontal well was designed. A large number of cases were simulated based on different well lengths, stage spacing and the number of stages. The productivity index was selected as the objective function for the optimisation process. The best case finally was selected as the optimum multi-stage hydraulic fracturing in a horizontal well in the Cooper Basin.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksander Valerievich Miroshnichenko ◽  
Valery Alekseevich Korotovskikh ◽  
Timur Ravilevich Musabirov ◽  
Aleksei Eduardovich Fedorov ◽  
Khakim Khalilovich Suleimanov

Abstract The deterioration of the reservoir properties of potential oil and gas bearing areas on mature and green fields, as well as the increase in the volume of hard-to-recover reserves on low-permeable reservoirs set us new challenges in searching and using effective development technologies to maintain and even increase the oil production levels. Based on successful international experience, Russian oil and gas companies use horizontal wells (HW) with multi-stage hydraulic fracturing (MSHF) for the cost-effective development of low-permeable reservoirs. Thus, since the first pilot works of drilling technologies and completion of HW with MSHF in 2011, at the beginning of 2020, over 1,200 HW with MSHF were drilled and came on stream at the fields of LLC RN-Yuganskneftegaz, about half of which are at the exploitation play AS10-12 of the northern license territory (NLT) of the Priobskoye field. In searching the best technologies and engineering solutions, the company tested different lengths of horizontal section of HW, the number of hydraulic fracturing (HF) stages and distances between hydraulic fracturing ports, as well as different specific mass of the proppant per frac port. Recently, there has been a tendency in design solutions to increase the length of the HWs and the number of hydraulic fractures with a decreasing distance between the frac ports and a decreasing specific mass of the proppant per frac port. This work studies the actual and theoretical efficiency of HW with MSHF of various designs (different lengths of horizontal section of HW and the number of HF stages) and to assess the viability of increasing the technological complexity, as well as to analyze the actual impact of loading the proppant mass per port on performing HW with MSHF. The study is based on the results of the analysis of the factual experience accumulated over the entire history of the development of the exploitation play AS10-12 of the NLT of the Priobskoye field of the Rosneft Company. In studying the viability of increasing the technological complexity, especially, increasing the length of horizontal section of HW, increasing the number of HF stages, and reducing the distance between the frac ports: we discovered the typical methodological errors made in analyzing the efficiency of wells of various designs; we developed the methodology for analysis of the actual multiplicity of indicators of wells of various designs, in particular, HW with MSHF relative to deviated wells (DW) with HF; we carried out the statistical analysis of the actual values of the multiplicity of performance indicators and completion parameters of HW with MSHF of various designs relative to the surrounding DW with HF of the exploitation play AS10-12 of the NLT of the Priobskoye field; we performed the theoretical calculation of the multiplicity of the productivity coefficient for the HW with MSHF of various designs relative to DW with HF for the standard development system of the exploitation play AS10-12 of the NLT of the Priobskoye field; we compared the actual and theoretical results. The paper also presents the results of studying the actual effect of changes of proppant's mass per port on performance indicators of HW with MSHF of the same design and with an increase in the number of fractures of the hydraulic fracturing without changing the length of horizontal section of HW. As for performance indicators, being the basis for estimating the efficiency of HW with MSHF of various designs, we used the productivity index per meter of the effective reservoir thickness and the cumulative fluid production per meter of the effective reservoir thickness per a certain period of operation. And as the completion parameters, we used the length of the horizontal section of HW, the number of HF stages, the distance between the frac ports, and the specific mass of the proppant per meter of the effective reservoir thickness per frac port. The results of this work are the determining vector of development for future design decisions in improving the efficiency of HW with MSHF.


2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Sookprasong ◽  
Sergey Mikhalovich Stolyarov ◽  
Mark Sargon

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.. Casero ◽  
M.. Rylance

AbstractThe past two decades have seen the development and expansion of an approach to wellbore completions that has resulted in unlocking significant reserves from previously disregarded resource, and has been responsible for the North American shale gas ‘revolution’ or ‘evolution’ (depending upon how you see it). However, this approach has faced significant complications to appropriate, successful and economic deployment, when attempts have been made to export this process overseas.This ground-breaking completion approach was achieved as a direct result of the combination of two well-known and widely applied industry technologies, from distinct disciplines: namely horizontal lateral drilling and propped hydraulic fracture stimulation. This simple combination is referred to by a number of different designations which are used to describe the process, but it is most commonly referred to simply as multi-stage horizontal well hydraulic fracturing.The North American success story has been primarily accomplished through the application of two distinct variants of this technique, split by fundamental approach to the stage sequencing: namely the Plug & Perf approach and the Open Hole Multi-Stage completion system (typically ball-activated fracture ports). The Open Hole Multi-Stage completion system has typically been applied selectively, with a bias towards clastic formations, whereas Plug & Perf has been more widely applied and almost exclusively dominates the shale completion environment.This paper will describe the engineering aspects of the multi-stage horizontal well hydraulic fracturing process, as well as those particular North America conditions and deliberate compromises that have been made, in order to encourage this approach to become established and develop further. Such analysis will include a holistic approach to the global market conditions, in order to better understand the local and regional factors that have played such a fundamental role in North American success, many of which have been erroneously overlooked elsewhere. This paper will investigate a number of these key issues and factors, particularly related to completion and reservoir interaction that should be considered carefully when choosing to export such techniques to new areas of application outside of North America. This will include an understanding of the key data that should be acquired, from the early exploration and subsequent appraisal wells, so that appropriate decisions can be made efficiently.


Geophysics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 81 (6) ◽  
pp. A13-A16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nigel Rees ◽  
Simon Carter ◽  
Graham Heinson ◽  
Lars Krieger

The magnetotelluric (MT) method is introduced as a geophysical tool to monitor hydraulic fracturing of shale gas reservoirs and to help constrain how injected fluids propagate. The MT method measures the electrical resistivity of earth, which is altered by the injection of fracturing fluids. The degree to which these changes are measurable at the surface is determined by several factors, such as the conductivity and quantity of the fluid injected, the depth of the target interval, the existing pore fluid salinity, and a range of formation properties, such as porosity and permeability. From an MT monitoring survey of a shale gas hydraulic fracture in the Cooper Basin, South Australia, we have found temporal and spatial changes in MT responses above measurement error. Smooth inversions are used to compare the resistivity structure before and during hydraulic fracturing, with results showing increases in bulk conductivity of 20%–40% at a depth range coinciding with the horizontal fracture. Comparisons with microseismic data lead to the conclusion that these increases in bulk conductivity are caused by a combination of the injected fluid permeability and an increase in wider scale in situ fluid permeability.


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