Raising the Bar in Completion Practices in Jonah Field: Channel Fracturing Increases Gas Production and Improves Operational Efficiency

Abstract

The Channel Fracturing technique was introduced have been pumped with this novel technique since realized over conventional completion methodologies. each treatment.The successful introduction of the Channel Fracturing technique prompted a new attempt to optimize completion practices by eliminating immediate flowback of each stage A field study was conducted to evaluate the performance of combined with sequential fracturing treatments with treating pressure data was gathered and compared against a sample of 18 placement with immediate flowback after each stage.Results indicate that the Channel Fracturing technique increased production Production gains were obtained without the Improvements in operational efficiency due to continuous fracturing operations and avoidance of screen reduction in overall operational costs of 18%. stimulation within a single wellbore can mit logistics and reduce the overall impact to the hydraulic fracturing footprint. multi-stage Channel Fracturing without flowback in between st wells in the Jonah field.was introduced for multi-stage well stimulation in the Jonah Field in 2010. 622 stages with this novel technique since. Production increases by as much as 27% (Johnson et al., 2011) realized over conventional completion methodologies. In this previous study, each stage was flowed back immediately afterThe successful introduction of the Channel Fracturing technique prompted a new attempt to optimize completion practices by flowback of each stage as a necessary step to sustain production performance goals A field study was conducted to evaluate the performance of five new wells stimulated with the Channel Fracturing technique combined with sequential fracturing treatments without flowback in between stages. Gas production, fluid flowback and gathered and compared against a sample of 18 offset wells stimulated with conventional proppant ack after each stage.annel Fracturing technique increased production by up to 28% with respe the occurrence of screen-outs for the wells stimulated with Channel Fracturing. ency due to continuous fracturing operations and avoidance of screen operational costs of 18%. Results show that the combination of Channel Fracturing mitigate previously documented production performance issues, reduce operational logistics and reduce the overall impact to the hydraulic fracturing footprint. By virtue of these benefits, well stimulation via stage Channel Fracturing without flowback in between stages has been adopted as a completion practice of choice for

Modeling of Fracture Width and Conductivity in Channel Fracturing With Nonlinear Proppant-Pillar Deformation

“…Currently, when design calculations are performed, the ratio (s) of the formation's Young's modulus to closure stress (usually the minimum horizontal stress) is used to evaluate the applicability of channel fracturing in a particular formation, Schlumberger (2012) recommends that channel-fracturing technology is applicable when s > 275. The values of s for formations in various oil fields have been reported in the literature, such as 280 in Eagle Ford Shale (Rhein et al 2011), 287 in Zagorskoe Field (Kayumov et al 2014), 293 in the Barnett Shale Formation (Samuelson et al 2012), 312 in Taylakovskoe Field (Sadykov et al 2012), 419 and 556 in western Egypt (Gawad et al 2013;Emam et al 2014), 532 in the Ordos Basin (Li et al 2015a), 583 in Jonah Field (Turner et al 2011), 797 in the Burgos Basin (Valenzuela et al 2012), and 632 in the Shengli Oil Field. All these fields have a s-value greater than 275, and channel-fracturing stimulations generally lead to more than a 30% increase in production.…”

“…Since the introduction of channel fracturing in 2010 (Gillard et al 2010), this technology has been used several thousand times worldwide and good stimulation results have been documented. Valenzuela et al (2012) reported the application of channel fracturing in a sandstone reservoir in Burgos Basin, Mexico, with a 32% increase in initial gas production and a 19% increase in 6-month accumulated production. Channel fracturing was also used in six conventional oil wells in the Talinskoe Oil Field in western Siberia, Russia, and a 51% increase in oil production was achieved.…”

On the Mechanisms of Channel Fracturing

“… Viability of the technique in formations in which the predominant lithological component is sandstone (e.g., Kayumov et al, 2012;Turner et al, 2011), carbonate (e.g., Rhein et al, 2011) or shale (e.g., Samuelson et al, 2012);  Applicability of the technique in vertical (e.g., Johnson et al, 2011) andhorizontal (e.g., Viswanathan et al, 2011) completions;  Applicability in reservoirs bearing dry gas (e.g., Gillard et al, 2010), wet gas/condensate (e.g., Altman et al, 2012), and oil (e.g., Sadykov et al, 2012).…”