Case Study: Innovative Approach To Increase Well Productivity by Adapting Drilling Targets and Completion Methodology
Authors: Aro Dustin , Hilton Tim , Bradham Connor , Gibbons Robert 
Published: November 2024

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The discourse regarding US land exploration and production has tended to primarily focus on shale development. While this has pushed the industry to adopt many technologies or applications, the general recipe has been to be faster and cheaper with hopefully more predictable BOE/ft production. However, there are limitations with this approach as it tends to boil down to a choice of substitution rather than true engineering to improve return on investment or improved net present value.

The relationship of parent and child well production has introduced a variable that does not necessarily respond to faster and cheaper. In fact, operators may agree that a dissolvable frac plug has application to reduce completion costs while completely disagreeing on the methodology to manage field development and the parent-child interaction.

Extensive field study and calibration can determine an optimal solution with varying degrees of predictability (SPE 211899).

For example, reservoir depletion and fracture communication can be difficult to accurately

plan for in advance. These and several additional parameters are specific to a section, field, or bench and the design and planning process begins anew when drilling locations move a sufficient distance away from the asset in question.

The best outcome during the drilling and completion of a child well is to limit the negative impact on parent well production while delivering an economically viable addition to existing production. Acceptable ranges of underperformance with the child well vary, but can be summarized as 20 to 30% less than the parent well (SPE 209171).

Additionally, contact from an offset child well fracturing operation can detrimentally affect parent well production temporarily or permanently by increasing water production and decreasing hydrocarbon production.

Introduction

This case study presents the development of a methodology for optimizing and controlling the hydraulic fracturing process’s parameters by increasing cluster efficiency to 100% and overcoming formation leakoff with eight to 10 times rate per cluster when compared with industry standards.

The developed framework is validated through field completion and production data taken from wells located on the Northwest Shelf, within the San Andres formation, specifically straddling the state line of New Mexico and Texas with operations primarily in northeast Lea County, New Mexico, and Yoakum County, Texas.

For the purposes of this study, parent wells are wells drilled during Segment 1 (2013 to 2016) and/or the first wells drilled in a section.

Child wells are defined as any subsequent wellbore placed in a section amongst current producers Segment 2 (2017 to 2020) and Segment 3 (2022 to 2023).

The offset true vertical depth (TVD) of the child wells relative to the parent wells is less than 100 ft and no geologic barrier exists, thus the contribution to production is from the same rock matrix regardless of well vintage.