Abstract
In recent years, a demand for clean burning fossil fuel and advancements in horizontal drilling has resulted in an increase in shale activity around the world. Due to extremely low shale matrix permeability, shale resources require successful hydraulic fracturing for the economic viability of a well. Operators have experimented with various completion methodologies to determine their potential, hoping to find the best completion practice for their shale play. A recent decline in natural gas prices have reduced the leverage needed for extensive experimentation. As a result, understanding the existing completion design has become critical.
In this paper, we compared multiple pairs of wells drilled in close proximity but have varying performance in each pair. The reservoir properties are based on the petrophysical analysis of the offset pilot well. As the wells in the pair share same petrophysical properties, the difference in performance should be related to changes in completion characteristics. This paper demonstrates workflow for determining completion characteristics by calibrating well performance to the fracture characteristics. A hydraulic fracture model incorporating rock geo-mechanical properties and actual fracture treatment data provides the estimate of hydraulic and propped fracture dimensions and properties. The results show how the changes in completion impact fracturing behavior can be correlated to observed well performance. The approach leverages current completion data weather successful or unsuccessful to build a knowledgebase which can guide us towards optimal future completion strategies sooner by reducing the amount of trial and error required.
