New Advancements in Flowback Analysis for Rapid Diagnostics and Integrated Hydraulic Fracture Optimization

Abstract

There is a large technological gap between the end of the frac and until operators accumulate long term production data to perform a meaningful lookback. Over the last 10 years flowback analysis (FBA) has emerged as a successful technology to address this problem by utilizing only commonly gathered production test data. FBA provides operators with a low-cost technology to perform rapid diagnostics and rapid lookbacks within days of opening the well to flow. In this paper, several case studies from prolific North America tight and shale plays will be presented to demonstrate the immense value of FBA for rapid diagnostics and rapid lookbacks. The presented case studies will focus on the interpretation of FBA results to identify hydraulic fracture optimization opportunities and improve future well performance. A new set of physics-based correlations are also demonstrated, which link effective stress (from DFIT), fracture area/stimulated volume (from FBA) and long-term pressure-normalized productivity, to extend the application of FBA to a large-scale field development. It allows operators to use extensive horizontal well base to predict and select optimal completion design ahead of pumping and to high grade the land base for full field development, forecasting and budget planning purposes. FBA is closing a significant technological gap in diagnostics methods from the time well has been completed to the time until we gather enough long-term production data to perform lookback or design evaluation. By integrating FBA diagnostics into hydraulic fracture optimization workflows, operators can promptly evaluate the efficacy of their fracture treatments and identify wells that are likely to underperform long-term within days of finishing pumping, enabling them to apply these insights to subsequent wells or pads. FBA provides results 6-12 months faster than other low-cost diagnostics (i.e. rate-transient analysis on long-term production data). By incorporating FBA into hydraulic optimization workflows, operators can quickly identify numerous commonly observed detrimental effects including small or unexpected fracture geometry, fracture skin damage, insufficient or degrading conductivity, and poor cluster efficiency. Through rapid diagnostics, operators are able to quickly identify optimization opportunities and drive their learning curve ahead of their capital spending.