Abstract
Hydraulic fracturing is the process of inducing a highly conductive path from the reservoir to the wellbore, thus increasing the productivity of the wells. The final success of hydraulic fracturing greatly depends on candidate well selection. Accordingly, selecting the proper candidate well is of crucial importance. This paper sets a series of criteria for assisting the process of candidate well selection for hydraulic fracturing. The IPR and correspondingly productivity index variations after hydraulic fracturing as case studies of several wells in one of Middle Eastern oil fields have been studied in this work in detail.
This paper can be used in the selection procedure of oil and gas wells for fracturing treatments. A detailed modelling of hydraulic fracturing candidate criteria selection would facilitate the task of identifying a proper candidate for this expensive job.
The most important parameters suggested are the in-situ stress profile of the well, the magnitude and direction of the in-situ stresses and the formation permeability. In this study, the pre-construction of the inflow performance models of the fractured and non-fractured well is considered as a tool in candidate well selection procedure. Well models presented here show the extent to which hydraulic fracturing improves the production performance of the well.
The previous works concerning candidate well selection for hydraulic fracturing do not put all the deciding parameters together in a clear order. This paper tries to summarize all criteria which must be evaluated during the candidate selection process based on experience and careful observation of the previous successful and failed jobs.