Proppants? We Don't Need No Proppants
Authors: Mayerhofer M.J. , Richardson M.F. , Walker R.N. , Meehan D.N. , Oehler M.W. , Browning R.R. 
Published: December 2007

Fracturing treatments using treated water and very low proppant concentrations ("waterfracs") have proven to be surprisingly successful in the East Texas Cotton Valley sand. This paper presents field and production data from such treatments and compares them to conventional frac jobs. We also propose possible explanations for why this process works.

Introduction

Hydraulic fracturing is the key technology to develop tight oil and gas reservoirs. Although millions of research dollars have been spent to date, much controversy remains about optimizing fracture design. Rock mechanics and fluid transport phenomena in hydraulic fracturing are still poorly understood. The processes are very complex with a host of unknowns. Measuring even one critical value such as net fracture treating pressure constitutes a difficult problem.

Hydraulic fracture research and development has put a lot of effort into effective placement of propping agents to provide and maintain fracture conductivity. For this purpose the service industry has developed sophisticated fracturing fluid systems and an extensive recipe of chemical additives. The fluid system is engineered to change viscosity during its journey from the surface to the fracture and afterwards during fracture cleanup. The sole reasons for these fluid designs is to place proppant, minimize formation damage and ensure proper cleanup. In turn, the proppant has no function other than maintaining a conductive fracture during well production. What would happen though if the fracture actually retains adequate conductivity with very little or no proppant?–Rock fractures often have rough surfaces. After the fracture closes, the residual aperture distribution can be very heterogeneous in all three dimensions forming a very conductive path even at high closure stresses. - Proppant along with gel residue could actually impair fracture permeability and its ability to cleanup.–Fracture extension and cleanup is easier to achieve with low viscosity fluids. Fracture extension is the key design parameter in tight reservoirs.

The above points may have a tremendous impact on the fracturing operation. Gelling agents, proppant and associated chemical additives comprise a large part of fracturing costs. In early literature, "self-propping" and "partial monolayers" of fractures has been discussed. In general though, the industry has discarded the idea. In the naturally fractured Austin Chalk the so-called "waterfrac treatments" are pumped with no propping agents. They are very successful. Why it works is still generally unknown.

The hydromechanical response of natural fractures has been addressed in rock mechanics literature. It is an extremely important issue in the field of underground nuclear waste disposal. The effect of normal stress and shear stresses on a fracture (natural and artificial) dictate its conductivity. The ramifications of these forces on fracture propagation are just now beginning to be investigated (multiple fractures). Description of "Waterfracs"

The following outlines the general pumping schedule (from here on, the treatments will be referred to as "waterfracs"). P. 457