THE WOODLANDS, Texas—Spotlighting one the most confounding challenges to face the hydraulic fracturing industry over the last several years—the issue of frac hits—the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) kicked off its 2019 Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference and Exhibition (HFTCE) Feb. 5 at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Convention Center.

While oil and gas companies work to drain reservoirs of every possible barrel by drilling thousands of infill, or child, wells, while doing so they have found many of those infill wells communicate—or “hit”—parent wells. The effect often leads to decreased production in parent wells—up to 30%, according to Schlumberger— declines in EUR or, in some cases, damaged well equipment.

The SPE made the issue a focus at this year’s show by featuring at least 10 technical sessions that address the challenge of parent/child well interactions, including the opening plenary session.

“Can you predict fracture hits? Can you prevent fracture hits? Can you keep them from damaging wells?” Stephen Holditch, session moderator, asked. “Those are the kinds of questions everybody’s asking.”

The session featured George King of GEK Engineering, Ripudaman Manchanda of The University of Texas at Austin, Piyush Pankaj of Schlumberger and Brendan Elliott of Devon Energy.

“[This issues] is one we will be seeing ever more of as we add infill wells in projects that already had close well spacing,” King said.

Although King acknowledged it likely would not be possible to completely avoid frac hits—or fracture-driven incidents as he suggests they be called—actions can be taken to lessen their impacts. Those actions include what he called a critical need to monitor pressure in offset wells.

Manchanda and others throughout the day suggested defensive refracs on parent wells as a possible solution, while Pankaj indicated that Schlumberger had seen successes with far-field diversion on child wells as well as by reducing pumping rates on child wells.

Diversion techniques and refracs were also among the featured topics during the first day’s technical sessions. Mary Garza, completions engineer for the Eagle Ford at Noble Energy, discussed her company’s efforts to refrac two parent wells with diversion following the completion of an infill well. Garza said the efforts resulted in a 40% improvement in EUR in one of the parent wells, but a breakeven EUR in the other.

The day also saw the reveal or announcement of several new product launches. Among those was Reveal Energy Services’ FracEYE, which measures pressure responses from parent wells to prevent frac hits from child wells. Halliburton unveiled its Illusion Spire Dissolvable Frac Plug, which, according to the company, features enhanced pump-down efficiency and a larger internal diameter for improved flowback. Schlumberger revealed its Fulcrum cement-to-frac technology, designed to mitigate poor zonal isolation in horizontal wellbores while providing additional hydraulic isolation beyond just mud removal.

In addition to the more than 50 technical papers being presented at this year’s SPE HFTCE, the event features 130-plus exhibitors at the conference center. The 2019 HFTCE runs through Feb. 7.

 

Onshore