Impact of near Well-Bore Geology on Hydraulic Fractures Geometry and Well Productivity: A Statistical Look Back at the Utica Play

Abstract

It is common in unconventional plays to have offset wells with very different productivity, even though these wells were drilled at the same time, in the same landing zone and with the same completion design. Such well behaviour is always puzzling because subsurface properties are not expected to vary significantly at a small scale. This problem has been identified in several pads in the Utica play. To try to understand this phenomena, a geological and statistical analysis has been performed on more than 400 wells and 7000 stages. The results show that differences between offset wells occur mainly when the two wells have their stages placed in slightly different facies. More precisely, we show that within a 40 feet thick landing zone, stages can be placed in 3 types of facies: (a.) facies A with a gamma-ray (GR) of ~70°API (~40% Vclay), (b.) facies B with a GR of ~60°API (~20% Vclay) and (c.) Facies C with a GR of ~50°API (~5% Vclay). Generally, for a given well, if more than 50% of its stages are in facies A, the production is 15% lower than a well with no stages in facies A. Analysis of pressure data from completion indicate that the productivity decrease originates from limited fractures propagations when the completion is initiated in the clay-rich facies. Stages completed in facies A show a high near well-bore pressure loss and a low net pressure, which is consistent with the notion of shale choke, where fracture propagation is limited to the near well-bore. On the contrary, stages placed in the brittle facies C show high net pressures and low near well bore pressure losses, consistent with well- developed fracture geometry in the far-field. This difference in hydraulic fracture geometry could explain the difference in production between two neighboring wells. Such results are important because it shows that stage placement is critical to productivity, even when the well has been accurately geosteered in the target zone. Optimizing the completion design by accounting for the heterogeneities should therefore significantly improve productivity and guide operation strategy.