Channel Fracturing Technology: A Paradigm Shift in Stimulation of Tight Reservoir and Unlock Production Potential
Authors: Salah Mohamed , El-Sebaee Mohamed , Batmaz Taner 
Published: March 2017

Abstract
Egypt's Western Desert reservoirs are characterized to be tight clastic reservoir. In the early development stages only layers with high permeability were produced while tight formation was not considered economic due to application of conventional completion strategy resulting in very low production results. With the decline of Egypt's hydrocarbon production and increase in domestic demand of energy, economically production from these tight reservoirs is a great challenge to maintain production's annual decline. The prospective of these tight producing zones were discovered at a depth below 14,000 feet where the stress is extremely high (1.1 psi/ft) and the reservoir permeability conditions are low with range of 0.2 mD; being necessary in all cases to fracture stimulate each horizon to define the fluid and evaluate productivity. The extreme stress condition and high fracturing treating pressure, risk of premature screen out are one of the main challenges to perform fracture stimulations on these formations which exceeded the working capability of the available equipment in addition; it required significant amount of horsepower on location. Initially, the conventional fracturing treatment was conservatively designed in terms of treatment rate, polymer loading of fracturing fluid and proppant concentration to manage both risk and treatment proppant placement. However, this conservative approach impaired proppant-pack conductivity and the effectiveness of the fracture half-length However, premature screen-outs severely disrupted stimulation operations, leading to costly nonproductive time and deferred production. The poor results using these conventional fracturing techniques during initial exploration and development, the wells were deemed uneconomical. The recent advances in channel fracturing technology; enabled operators to unlock the potential of their toughest reservoirs to economically produce and unlock the enormous amount of hydrocarbons retained in the rock, prolong life of mature fields and achieve production targets. With the application of this technique, helps alleviate the risks of screenout and mitigates the proppant bridging buildup, as the proppant is added in pulses along with dissolvable fibers. These proppant pillars are suspended and held in place by fibers during the treatment. Once pumping is stopped, the fracture closes on the proppant pillars and the fibers degrades under effect of formation temperature. These pillars hold stable channels along the entire geometry of the fracture that provide open pathway for hydrocarbons to flow in near-infinite conductivity. Additionally, 40% less proppant was used and reducing pump rates, which lowered horsepower requirements by 30%. Results indicate that the channel fracturing technique has significantly impacted wells' performance and achieved the desired objectives over conventional fracturing methodologies. Positive features that were observed such as reduced net pressure increase estimates, elimination of near-wellbore screen-outs.