Multi-Pronged Diagnostics with Modeling to Improve Development Decisions-An Operator Case Study
Erich Kerr, Kyle Haustveit, Reid Scofield, Erick Estrada, Andrew S. Johnson, Scott Galuska, Jackson Haffener, Miles Landry
Abstract
Abstract The drive for capital efficiency in unconventionals has encouraged operators to understand subsurface interactions as effectively as possible. Combining multiple types of new and proven field technology systematically with advanced fracture modeling tools has led to continued improvements in field testing, understanding, and acreage development. Careful selection and application of these tools and technologies to understand subsurface characteristics and responses is a high priority when determining how to improve the net asset value. Diagnostic and modeling results will be integrated together to show how these learnings, when combined appropriately, equate to a sum greater than their parts. Several field case studies will be provided to illustrate the benefits of the multi-pronged diagnostics with modeling approach. Fiber optic strain monitoring and Sealed Wellbore Pressure Monitoring (SWPM) tests will be combined and performed across multiple wellbore distances with multiple fracture design tests. Results will then be analyzed to understand fracture growth characteristics by using a hydraulic fracture simulator capable of convective particle transport, multi-fracture stress and strain shadowing, and complex fluid rheology. Select results will then be coupled with concurrent diagnostics that include microseismic, formation imaging, and casing caliper data to show how hydraulic fracturing interactions occur dynamically in the subsurface. The geomechanics models will then be used to inform stage and cluster level details derived from field diagnostics that include stimulation and production performance behaviors, which incorporate combined non-Darcy and multi-phase flow impacts. Technologies will include erosion imaging diagnostics and permanent fiber optic warmback results. Finally, a cluster-level analysis with downhole fiber optics strain data will be analyzed in conjunction with SWPM to inform subsurface dynamics and show how fracture treatment design optimization may be achieved by combining field learnings with the modeling. These case studies are summarized to show how proper geomechanics modeling, application of field data, collection of the necessary diagnostics, and testing methods are used together to effectively improve completion designs, well spacing configurations, field diagnostics, and real-time stimulation and post-stimulation production analyses.