Abstract
In recent years, frac-pack completions have been proven to be a means for obtaining highly efficient completions in high-permeability, unconsolidated formations. The success of this completion technique has been attested to by it's moving into a strong lead as the most common sand control completion. Along with its wide-spread acceptance, care must be exercised to insure that we, as an industry, are not becoming too complacent concerning proper procedures.
For example, it is becoming increasingly common to "cut corners" during frac-pack execution, and eliminate pre-job field evaluations of mini-frac tests. These short cuts are typically taken in well-developed areas where it is thought little can be learned from the additional data, and the time savings are seen as significant. However, the difference in conditions as well as specific fluid characteristics from well to well, can cause less than optimal treatments being pumped if appropriate pretreatment evaluations are not performed.
This paper contains two field cases where the frac pack treatments resulted in exceptionally good production rates, low sand-face draw-downs and complete sand control. These were not straight-forward, hit and run type exercises, and both required extensive effort and forethought in terms of design, applied technology and operations. This suggests that the time spent in aligning the treatment scope with a particular reservoir needs during the execution phase of the Frac Pack completion played a significant role in the success of these completions. Therefore, when considering the use of pretreatment evaluation procedures the cost should not be viewed as "thousands of additional dollars spent" but indeed as "millions of dollars not left on the table" through optimized productivity.
