Infill drilling is becoming a common practice for more efficient development of tight reservoirs. However, child-well stimulation may lead to a parent-child well interference or a fracture hit. To mitigate the negative impacts of a fracture hit, the parent well is preloaded before the stimulation of child wells. Then, the injected water during the pre-loading period is later produced back to the surface. The preloading flowback (second flowback) data of parent wells may provide an opportunity for fracture charactrization. The main objective of this research is to compare the responses of initial and second flowback to capture the changes in fracture characterstics after production and preload processes.

We construct rate-normalized pressure (RNP) diagnostic plots on both initial and second flowback (IFB and SFB, respectively) of six multi-fractured horizontal wells completed in Niobrara and Codell formations in DJ Basin. In general, the slope of RNP versus MBT during the SFB period is higher than that during the IFB period, except for well 1. We estimate the changes in average effective fracture volume (Vef) by analyzing the changes in the RNP slope and total compressibility during these two flowback periods. Compared to the IFB period, the Vef is generally decreased during the SFB period.

The loss percentage of effective fracture volume (RVef) is estimated at 10-40%. We also compare the drive mechanisms for the two flowback periods by calculating the compaction drive index (CDI), hydrocarbon-drive index (HDI), and water-drive index (WDI). The dominant driving mechanism during both flowback periods is CDI, but its contribution is reduced by 12% in the SFB period. This drop is generally compensated by a relatively higher HDI during this period. Finally, we investigate the effects of duration of production (tp) on RVef. There is a positive correlation between tp and RVef during the two flowback periods. Therefore, the loss of effective fracture volume might be attributed to the pressure depletion in fractures caused by the long production period (more than 800 days).

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