An innovative completion technique that has been used to effectively complete coal gas wells is an open-hole completion in which the coal is encouraged to slough into the wellbore. During the completion process, the wellbore is effectively linked to the reservoir due to the creation of numerous multi-directional self-propped fractures. The technique has been commonly called an "open-hole cavity completion." However, the cavity is a by-product of the process and not the primary objective of the completion. A more suitable terminology for the technique is "dynamic open-hole completion." The majority of the dynamic openhole completions have been performed in the Fruitland Formation of the San Juan Basin, Colorado and New Mexico. Dynamic open-hole completed coal gas wells in some areas, but not all, produce at significantly greater rates than wells completed using other techniques such as hydraulic fracturing. Because of the success in the San Juan Basin, dynamic open-hole completions have been attempted in other basins including the Piceance, Powder River, Arkoma, Uinta, and Black Warrior. This paper presents a conceptual model and a working hypothesis concerning what takes place in the coal reservoir during the dynamic open-hole completion process. Based upon this model and hypothesis, techniques to: i) optimize the completion, ii) evaluate the effectiveness of the technique, and iii) how to determine when to terminate completion operations will be presented.Optimization and Evaluation of Open-Hole Cavity Completion Techniques for Coal Gas Wells SFlE 25859 commonly classified into fractures of four types, face cleats, butt cleats, tertiary cleats, and joints.
The Delaware fonnation is a very fine grained sandstone, often 4000 feet thick, located in West Texas and SE New Mexico. Resistivity based log interpretation in the Delaware has proven to be ineffective in most circumstances. Deep invasion and high irreducible water volumes lead to water saturation calculations that rarely reflect future production.
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