Abstract
This paper provides the first technical review of a casing-conveyed perforating technique to fracture stimulate multiple sands in a single wellbore. This is an alternate well completion methodology to improve life-of-well economics. Two wells in Kenai, Alaska were recently completed using this system. The system consists of perforating guns mounted external to the casing and integral valves in the casing for zonal isolation. All equipment is remotely actuated without wellbore intervention. The first well was completed with 15 perforating modules and the second with 12 modules, each placed over a 1,700’ (520M) gross interval. This case history recounts the installation of these completions and their subsequent perforation and fracture stimulation. Both completions are considered technical and economic successes.
The casing-conveyed perforating technique was chosen for these Beluga Sand wells in an effort to improve life-of-well economics and total hydrocarbon recovery. An exhaustive characterization study of this multiple-pay environment recognized that conventional completion techniques were not adequately developing the resource. Low-quality Beluga sand bodies represent a large potential target of reserves, but the economics of conventional completion techniques never allowed this potential resource to be stimulated and properly evaluated. Use of this new completion technique meant that all pay sands, even those low-quality sands that had conventionally been ignored, could now be effectively and economically stimulated. Minifrac data, tracers, and production logs are used to evaluate the productive potential of these low-quality Beluga Sands.
