This paper discusses the use of numerical simulations for predicting the onset and development of fracture tip screenout (TSO). It presents a parametric study for fracture containment to prevent height growth into water boundaries or a gas cap, under conditions that approximately simulate Gulf of Mexico reservoirs (weakly consolidated, high permeability soft formations). Different typical field cases were analyzed to demonstrate height containment at TSO conditions. The perforation interval is critical to height containment, with perforation height of only a fraction of the total pay interval required in some cases in order to create TSO.

Keywords:
onset, screenout, slurry, fracture re-growth, fracture length, proppant concentration, fracture, net pressure, tso treatment, tso
Subjects:
Hydraulic Fracturing, Fracturing materials (fluids, proppant)
Copyright 2003, Society of Petroleum Engineers
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