When planning a fracture treatment where more than one set of pay zones will be perforated, a designer must consider that multiple fractures will initiate simultaneously and later merge into a lesser number of fractures. Unfortunately, almost all published three-dimensional fracture simulation papers assume that there is only one fracture made during the entire fracturing process. Consequently, if more than one set of perforations exists, some averaging techniques must be used that reduce the accuracy of the simulation. This simplifying assumption is often made due to the mathematical complexity of dealing with multiple fractures with or without merging.

This paper represents the first effort to solve this complex problem. In this paper, we discuss a simple case with only two sets of perforation zones; in the future, it is planned to extend the problem to more sets of perforations.

Keywords:
hydraulic propagation theory, perforation, completion installation and operations, spe 26792, pressure drop, perforated interval, fracture, multiple fracture, upper pay zone, average stress
Subjects:
Hydraulic Fracturing, Perforating, Fracturing materials (fluids, proppant), Completion Installation and Operations, Completion Operations
Copyright 1993, Society of Petroleum Engineers
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