Hydraulic Fracturing: Fracturing Plans and Reality Often Look Really Different
Authors: Rassenfoss Stephen , Zborowski Matt 
Published: March 2018

Fracturing Plans and Reality Often Look Really Different

Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Senior Editor and Matt Zborowski, JPT Technology Writer

Good diagnostic testing is often painstaking, time-consuming, and costly, but recent studies suggest that a lack of knowledge can be even costlier.

According to several recent technical papers, hydraulic fracturing often misses its target, and productive early wells in stacked plays may be the template for development plans that leave a lot of hydrocarbons stranded.

Shell, Devon, and Anadarko have deployed multiple tools in the field because “no single fracture diagnostic can answer all the questions,” said Gustavo Ugueto, senior staff petrophysical engineer for Shell, during a presentation at the recent SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technical Conference, where all these papers were presented.

 

Hydraulic Fracturing Going Sideways

Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Senior Editor

Fracturing plans offer a vision of high-pressure slurries of water and sand shooting out of each perforation creating a dense, even array of fractures around a wellbore.

 

Getting More out of Stacked Zones

Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Senior Editor

An early well that is a prolific producer can be a poor model for future drilling within a play with stacked zones. The potential downside is that strong early flow may be depleting multiple zones. Production from later wells drilled nearby is likely to suffer because the stimulated rock is in competition with older wells that have reduced both the oil and gas present, and the pressure needed for production.

 

Seeking Insights in Microbes, DNA, and Rocks

Matt Zborowski, JPT Technology Writer

Anadarko Petroleum is building an expanding database of microbe DNA to help it map fluid movements and the source of production in the Delaware Basin.

 

Erosion as a Fracturing Indicator

Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Senior Editor

It is common knowledge that some perforations take much of the fluid and grow into large fractures while other openings along the well never grow at all. There is no way to image the path followed by the individual cracks created by hydraulic fracturing but it is possible to see where they start. The big ones likely grew from perforations where the grinding force of the high pressure slurries of water and sand injected for fracturing have turned carved, round holes into large, often-jagged openings.

 

Digging Up New Information On What Fractures Really Look Like

Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Senior Editor

During a panel discussion on what fractures look like, one expert added a significant qualifier to the title: what they “may look like.”

That addition by Roberto Suarez- Rivera, scientific advisor for W.D. Von Gonten & Co., was in keeping with a discussion at the SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference that offered ample evidence that when hydraulic fracturing is closely examined, results often vary from expectations.

 

They Are Not Drilling Shale Wells Like They Used To

Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Senior Editor

Maintaining production in the shale business is getting increasingly costly because new wells in major US shale plays are falling short of output from the parent wells.

A study of 10 major US basins by Schlumberger (SPE 189875) found that while the parent and child wells looked comparable at first glance—about half of new wells outperform the older wells and vice versa—the picture changes when the results are adjusted for the higher cost of drilling and fracturing new wells.