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MIT World Peace University

The Barnett Shale success in the 90's has led to a significant amount of focused work on fracturing and its related aspects. The work included understanding its nuances, to be able to design the treatments better, and pump them with enhanced efficiency. Production from these completed wells is highly dependent on both the characteristics of proppants being placed, as well as those of the reservoir being treated. Fracturing leads to an interaction between the minerals of the proppants, formation and the fluids. Incompatible chemical interactions between minerals of the proppants, formation and fracturing fluids lead to precipitations which reduce porosity. Under in-situ conditions, these interactions further facilitate the phenomenon of geo-chemical diagenesis as a result of which rapid loss of fracture conductivity is observed. The diagenesis process includes mechanisms such as diffusion, temperature induced dissolution, precipitation in the pore space, along with chemical reactions at the fracture surface. These mechanisms lead to a reduction in the width and hence, the permeability of the created fracture. Proppant pack permeability reduction is presented in this paper through a mathematical model, which simulates fluid-mineral reactions in the created hydraulic fracture. The model involves solving the diffusion and precipitation equations for each component to simulate the changing porosity and permeability over time. These coded partial differential equations are combined with the reactions occurring at the surface. Further, this work studies the impact of this reduction on the productivity of a well completed in shale reservoir, followed by a sensitivity study of critical parameters. This work will help in a better understanding of reactions occurring within the fractures and their effect on the loss of fracture conductivity. With India looking at developing its shale plays, this work also includes possible issues that could affect this development. © Copyright 2015, Society of Petroleum Engineers.

School of Petroleum Engineering

Engineering and Technology

SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition

Shale Gas Productivity: A Geo-chemical Diagenesis Perspective

Gas from shale reservoirs is difficult to produce, unless they are effectively stimulated. Production from wells completed in these quad-porosity reservoirs is dependent on the placement of hydraulic fractures and their degree of connectivity to the existing natural fractures. These propped fractures and their effectiveness is a direct function of the in situ stress in the formation. Furthermore, geochemical diagenesis in the created fractures significantly impacts fracture conductivity. This paper utilizes a fracture-completed horizontal well in different configurations of quad-porosity shale gas reservoir models to assess the effect of gas flow and storage in these systems on production parameters. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis is carried out on critical parameters to observe its impact on well performance. This work will help to provide a better understanding of hydraulic fracturing treatments and its effect on the forecast of a stimulated well with reasonable certainty.

World University root node

Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research

Simulation and Mathematical Modeling of Stimulated Shale Gas Reservoirs

Shale gas is one of the most widely discussed unconventional gas resource with vast potential. With the United States having benefitted immensely from it, other countries are also venturing into it. Drilling horizontal wells and hydraulically fracturing them are two major components of developing a shale gas reservoir economically. With many countries in Europe looking at the possibility of producing gas from shale reservoirs, the practice of hydraulic fracturing (HF) is going to gain even more prominence. However, operationally the procedure to hydraulically fracture a well is very complex, and has many possible situations which can lead to an accident. Some of these accidents may lead to catastrophic consequences, leading to loss of lives. In the industry, there are multiple methods used to classify and quantify risk, based on certain parameters. This paper performs a comprehensive risk assessment for the entire hydraulic fracturing job, from an operational perspective. This is done using industry available techniques. The result of this work is to assess the risk factor achieved from each technique, and check whether each of the methods converges onto a single sub-operation, classifying it as the most risky, with the highest risk ranking. Based on the results, this paper recommends steps to counter the minor but risky situations that may arise due to negligence. The results are compared with an actual fracturing operation on the field. Hydraulic Fracturing Most of the reservoirs being explored today have good porosity but poor permeability. Poor permeability reservoirs do not allow oil and gas to reach the wellbore in sufficient volumes. To increase the flow of oil and gas from the reservoir rock to wellbore in poor permeable reservoirs, fracturing of the wells is deemed necessary. Fracturing may also be used in case of depleted reservoirs, where additional energy and surface area is required for fluids to flow to the wellbore. Fracturing is a complex operation, involving multiple equipments, as shown in Figure 1. Fracturing involves the pumping of fracturing fluid and proppant into a formation at a calculated, pre-defined rate and pressure. These defined conditions result in initiation and development of fractures in the rock formation. In shale gas reservoirs, the low permeability of the reservoir impedes the capacity of gas to flow freely within the formation. Poorer the reservoir, the more advanced the technology and. Copyright © 2014, Society of Petroleum Engineers.

SPE Middle East Health Safety Environment &amp; Sustainable Development Conference and Exhibition

A Comparative Assessment of Quantitative Risk as Applied to Hydraulic Fracturing Operations

The importance of obtaining a perfect core of a petroleum reservoir is undisputed. Despite tremendous advances in coring techniques, some basic problems remain as challenging as ever. One of these is the coring of unconsolidated formations. Most side-wall cores result in partially damaged cores, totally damaged cores or no core at all, especially in unconsolidated formations. This proposed technique promises to greatly improve the recovery, quality and longevity of the core, thereby resulting in a much better interpretation. Freezing has long been used to preserve cores on the surface, but never before used in-situ. Here in this technique, part of the formation is frozen before being drilled out. Freeze coring promises to be highly beneficial in percussion side-wall coring, as it increases localised formation strength thus increasing impact resistance. Hence, the chances of recovering the core intact increase significantly. This paper discusses the science of the proposed process, explains the mechanism and puts forward a new design for coring, which will help bring back virgin cores to the surface. Changes in the current techniques are proposed which is backed by experimental work. Overall, this work will help determine petrophysical properties of the reservoir to a much higher accuracy while drilling, thus helping in identifying prolific reservoirs. Copyright 2011, International Petroleum Technology Conference.

Society of Petroleum Engineers - International Petroleum Technology Conference 2012, IPTC 2012

Side-wall coring: Advanced ln-situ freeze-core technique

Scale deposition in producing wellbores is a serious problem in the industry. The problem gets worse, when the scale is caused due to barium and strontium salts. These salts are difficult to clean as they are not easily soluble in any kinds of solution or chelating agents. In case of offshore operation, the scaling phenomenon is inevitable, as sea water injection is done. Formation of scales changes the surface roughness of the production tubing, thereby increasing the frictional pressure drop leading to a decreased production rate. Further deposition clogs the production tubing, creating hindrances for lowering tools into lower sections of the production string. In worst cases tubing replacement needs to be done, which is a capital intensive activity. Creating a super hydrophobic surface with multi-scale nano structures on the inside of the production tubing can greatly reduce the chances of scale deposition. This surface is created on epoxy paint surfaces using a feasible dip coating process. Microstructures are created on this surface using sandblast. Then nano structures are introduced on to the micro surface by anchoring 50-100 micro-meter SiO2 particles and finally completed by dip coating with nano SiO2/epoxy adhesive solution. The hydrophobicity is further enhanced by another dip coating of a low surface energy polymer, aminopropyl. The super hydrophobic surface shows a contact angle of 167.8 degrees (Cui, Yin, Wang et al. 2009) for water, and has high stability in basic and common organic solvents. The ions are carried in the water present in the crude. By increasing the contact angle for water, the chances of deposition of the ions that pose scaling can be reduced. This method may provide a long term solution for scale deposition especially in offshore fields where scaling incurs huge losses. Copyright 2012, Society of Petroleum Engineers.

SPE Middle East Health, Safety, Security, and Environment Conference and Exhibition

Scale inhibition using nano-silica particles

IPTC 2012: International Petroleum Technology Conference

Side-wall Coring: Advanced In-situ Freeze-Core Technique

One of the challenging problems of gas production is the liquid loading of a gas well. It is the inability of the produced gas to remove the produced liquids from the well bore. This phenomenon has a significantly negative impact on gas well production rate and reservoir pressure due to build up of liquids in the well bore. The accumulated liquid may be in the form of formation water, condensed water or hydrocarbons condensate which acts as a hindrance to the formation gas getting produced. The ultimate recovery of gas is dependent on the economic removal of accumulated liquids, to allow the gas to get produced. This paper discusses a new idea of using dielectric heating using microwaves to heat and vaporize the water and hydrocarbons in the wellbore, if present. As a result of this heating, the fluid density decreases and the gas and vapours flow naturally to the surface. The frequency of microwaves in general is 2450 MHz; depending on the need, the frequency can be varied. Experiments were carried out on the use of this technology and the results are encouraging. This paper discusses this new technique, results obtained from conducted experiments, and provides advantages to the current methods. Copyright 2011, Society of Petroleum Engineers.

SPE Production and Operations Symposium

Gas Well Deliquification Using Microwave Heating

One of the challenging problems of gas production is the liquid loading of a gas well. It is the inability of the produced gas to remove the produced liquids from the well bore. This phenomenon has a significantly negative impact on gas well production rate and reservoir pressure due to build up of liquids in the well bore. The accumulated liquid may be in the form of formation water, condensed water or hydrocarbons condensate which acts as a hindrance to the formation gas getting produced. The ultimate recovery of gas is dependent on the economic removal of accumulated liquids, to allow the gas to get produced. This paper discusses a new idea of using dielectric heating using microwaves to heat and vaporize the water and hydrocarbons in the wellbore, if present. As a result of this heating, the fluid density decreases and the gas and vapours flow naturally to the surface. The frequency of microwaves in general is 2450 MHz; depending on the need, the frequency can be varied. Experiments were carried out on the use of this technology and the results are encouraging. This paper discusses this new technique, results obtained from conducted experiments, and provides advantages to the current methods.