Practical Methods to Sustain Production after Hydraulic Fracturing Treatment in Marginal Wells—Case History from Western Desert Egypt

Abstract

The Bahariya formation of the Western Desert is characterized as a dirty sandstone with a high clay content, h. It is highly laminated (streaks of 20- to 50 ft spread over a 200-- to 300-ft column), the has poor permeability is poor in most cases, and has low to normal reservoir pressure variance. Many of these wells are shutin owing to because of very poor productivity, and those that do produce with artificial lift do so with very little recovery. In general terms, these are considered to be marginal wells and not worthy of particular attention until a new approach was taken towards them. A careful review of the field suggested a possible benefit from implementing hydraulic fracturing treatments. It was, however, not a simple case of just applying hydraulic fracturing treatment to every well, but required proper well screening, thorough log analysis, calculating and validating mechanical rock properties, and enhanced 3D fracture modeling to have for a successful campaign. Maintaining sustained production was equally essential to the project because damage to fracture conductivity and proppant flowback after a fracturing treatment can easily erode the financial benefits of a fracturing treatment. One of the enhancements implemented was a proprietary liquid resin coating (LRC) of the proppants to control proppant flowback and to act as a fracture conductivity endurance agent. This paper discusses such treatments and the methodology applied on a recent 14fourteen -well fracturing campaign. The production results have been impressive and will serve as good guidelines for other operators who may also be facing similar challenges in the North North Africa region and elsewhere. Introduction With the constant increase in oil prices in of the recent past, very favorable economic gains have been easily achieved through the implementation of non unconventional techniques. Proper well stimulation has been one of the most economical in achieving these gains. The success of this technique involves proper well screening, zone selection, stimulation technique, and selection of appropriate product. In such cases the main objectives included :Connecting the laminated streaks of the formation.Bypassing any skin damage at the near near-wellbore area.Extending the economic life of the well. The baharia Bahariya formation is a heterogeneous, laminated structure. W with limited vertical to horizontal permeability ratio. Historically, naturally producing this zone has shown limited recovery, leaving much of the reserves untouched. To achieve further recovery hHydraulic fracturing was implemented to achieve further recovery. After the first few trials further improvement to the technique was achieved by the implementation of liquid resin system (LRS). The comprehensive analysis proved the benefits of applying LRS compared to the use of other techniques to reduce proppant flowback.

Controlling Solids Flowback to Maintain Production of Hydrocarbons: A Review of Successful Chemical Technologies in the Last Decade

“…17,18,28,4,29,30,31,9,21 New LCR o date, more than 3,500 hydraulic fracturing nts using LCR systems were performed worldwide. 26,32,33,34,35,36,37,21,38 static mixer to form a homogeneous mixture just before injecting downhole by means of coiled tubing (CT) or jointed pipe before being placed into the perforated interval.…”