Investigation of Horizontal Wells with Multi-Stage Hydraulic Fracturing Technological Efficiency in the Development of Low-Permeability Oil Reservoirs
Authors: Miroshnichenko Aleksander Valerievich , Korotovskikh Valery Alekseevich , Musabirov Timur Ravilevich , Fedorov Aleksei Eduardovich , Suleimanov Khakim Khalilovich 
Published: October 2021

The deterioration of the reservoir properties of potential oil and gas bearing areas on mature and green fields, as well as the increase in the volume of hard-to-recover reserves on low-permeable reservoirs set us new challenges in searching and using effective development technologies to maintain and even increase the oil production levels.

Based on successful international experience, Russian oil and gas companies use horizontal wells (HW) with multi-stage hydraulic fracturing (MSHF) for the cost-effective development of low-permeable reservoirs. Thus, since the first pilot works of drilling technologies and completion of HW with MSHF in 2011, at the beginning of 2020, over 1,200 HW with MSHF were drilled and came on stream at the fields of LLC RN-Yuganskneftegaz, about half of which are at the exploitation play AS10-12 of the northern license territory (NLT) of the Priobskoye field.

In searching the best technologies and engineering solutions, the company tested different lengths of horizontal section of HW, the number of hydraulic fracturing (HF) stages and distances between hydraulic fracturing ports, as well as different specific mass of the proppant per frac port. Recently, there has been a tendency in design solutions to increase the length of the HWs and the number of hydraulic fractures with a decreasing distance between the frac ports and a decreasing specific mass of the proppant per frac port.

This work studies the actual and theoretical efficiency of HW with MSHF of various designs (different lengths of horizontal section of HW and the number of HF stages) and to assess the viability of increasing the technological complexity, as well as to analyze the actual impact of loading the proppant mass per port on performing HW with MSHF. The study is based on the results of the analysis of the factual experience accumulated over the entire history of the development of the exploitation play AS10-12 of the NLT of the Priobskoye field of the Rosneft Company.

In studying the viability of increasing the technological complexity, especially, increasing the length of horizontal section of HW, increasing the number of HF stages, and reducing the distance between the frac ports:

we discovered the typical methodological errors made in analyzing the efficiency of wells of various designs; we developed the methodology for analysis of the actual multiplicity of indicators of wells of various designs, in particular, HW with MSHF relative to deviated wells (DW) with HF; we carried out the statistical analysis of the actual values of the multiplicity of performance indicators and completion parameters of HW with MSHF of various designs relative to the surrounding DW with HF of the exploitation play AS10-12 of the NLT of the Priobskoye field; we performed the theoretical calculation of the multiplicity of the productivity coefficient for the HW with MSHF of various designs relative to DW with HF for the standard development system of the exploitation play AS10-12 of the NLT of the Priobskoye field; we compared the actual and theoretical results.

The paper also presents the results of studying the actual effect of changes of proppant's mass per port on performance indicators of HW with MSHF of the same design and with an increase in the number of fractures of the hydraulic fracturing without changing the length of horizontal section of HW.

As for performance indicators, being the basis for estimating the efficiency of HW with MSHF of various designs, we used the productivity index per meter of the effective reservoir thickness and the cumulative fluid production per meter of the effective reservoir thickness per a certain period of operation. And as the completion parameters, we used the length of the horizontal section of HW, the number of HF stages, the distance between the frac ports, and the specific mass of the proppant per meter of the effective reservoir thickness per frac port.

The results of this work are the determining vector of development for future design decisions in improving the efficiency of HW with MSHF.