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Sau-Wai Wong
Shell International Exploration & Production, Houston, USA
Copyright 2016 ARMA, American Rock Mechanics Association
This paper was prepared for presentation at the 50th US Rock Mechanics / Geomechanics Symposium held in Houston, Texas, USA, 26-29 June
2016. This paper was selected for presentation at the symposium by an ARMA Technical Program Committee based on a technical and critical
review of the paper by a minimum of two technical reviewers. The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any position of ARMA, its
officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper for commercial purposes without the written
consent of ARMA is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 200 words; illustrations may not be
copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgement of where and by whom the paper was presented.
ABSTRACT: Formation breakdown failures were early on identified as technical risk in hydraulic fracturing treatments
of wells in the Sichuan basin, China. This study focuses on reducing the breakdown pressure while improving nearwellbore fracture geometries by a variety of perforation geometries as well as cyclic pressure ramp-ups. A total of six
large scale polyaxial experiments on isotropic cement samples were conducted, in which the principal stresses were set
to represent a horizontal wellbore in a normally faulted stress regime. The results show that breakdown pressures can
be reduced by 25% with in-plane perforations or cyclic pressure ramping. The results further indicate that open hole
and conventional plug-and-perf completions lead to more near wellbore fracture tortuosities, while transverse fractures
can be initiated from the in-plane perforation geometry.
1. INTRODUCTION
Most operators active in unconventional resource plays
base their hydraulic fracturing treatment design on their
experiences gained in North Americas normally faulted
marine basins. In areas with more challenging tectonic
settings and deeper targets, however, hydraulic
fracturing treatments need to be designed for higher
breakdown pressures, higher average pumping pressures,
and the risks of limited fracture height growth as well as
pre-mature screen-outs.
In Chinas Sichuan Basin, breakdown pressures
exceeding the design pressure rating of available
standard pumping equipment (15 kpi surface pressure
limit) have caused the failure of numerous hydraulic
fracturing stages, or required additional perforations or
sand jetting before the formation would break down.
In addition to issues related to breakdown pressure, nonradioactive tracer logs and micro-seismic data indicated
very limited fracture heights. It might be possible that at
certain formation layers, the hydraulic fractures were
propagating horizontally. This hypothesis is reinforced
by the closure stresses of several injection tests, which
yielded a theoretical minimum horizontal stress
equivalent to the overburden stress [1]. This suggests a
strike-slip (H > v > h) to reversely faulted stress
regime (H > h > v). When stimulating horizontal wells
(1)
3 H v + T 2 p0
;
2 (1 )
(1 2 )
2 (1 )
(2)
2
1
1
= H v + c
3
2
2
(3)
KIC g ( a / Rw ) a ( v H )
a f ( a / Rw )
(4)
3. EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION
To verify this in-plane perforation concept, an
experimental testing program in a large-scale polyaxial
apparatus was undertaken.
Unlike field trials, in polyaxial experiments, the material
properties, completion geometry, principal stress
conditions as well as the fluid properties and injection
rate can be accurately designed and controlled. Apart
from pressure recordings, the fracture geometry can be
investigated by post-test cuts of the sample, on which
surfaces the dyed injection fluid can be traced back. The
sequence of the fracture propagation can in turn be
monitored in real time based on acoustic emission
recordings.
The sample dimensions and major specifications of the
polyaxial laboratory and test set-up are given in Table 1,
while further details about the apparatus can be found in
[10]. It is one of very few polyaxial testing facilities
designed for samples of that scale, and it is therefore
ideally suited to investigate near wellbore fracture
geometries unaffected by the outer fixed boundary
constraint.
Table 1: Sample size and apparatus specification.
15000
82
69
24
[MPa]
30
27
19
No.
Test description
L/Dw
T1
open hole
T2
T3
long in-plane
T4
short in-plane
0.5
T5
0.5
0
0.5
Test:
T1
T2
T3
T4
T5
open hole
long in-plane
short in-plane
(A)
(B)
(C)
(BHP, v, H ) - h
[MPa]
Dw
L/Dw = 3
L/Dw = 0.5
L/Dw = 0.5
10
10
10
-5
-5
-10
-10
10
5
0
-5
test A
-5
-10
L/Dw = 0.5
10
BHP
0
4
6
[min]
Pb h = 4.29 [MPa]
10
4
6
[min]
5.97
10
-5
test B
0
4
6
[min]
10
-10
-10
0
A = 0.75; B = 0.93
4
6
[min]
10
-15
0.54
4
6
[min]
0.47
10
Test:
T1
T2
T3
T4
T5
open hole
long in-plane
Short in plane
Cyclic P, 6 spf
(A)
Dw
Primary axial
fracture
L/Dw = 0.5
L/Dw = 3
L/Dw = 0.5
L/Dw = 0.5
(B)
Secondary transverse
fracture
(C)
Near-wellbore tortuosities
(top) and transverse
fracture (bottom)
Fig. 5: Completion geometries (A) and their respective near-wellbore fracture geometries (B-C).
2000
80
60
1000
50
500
40
10
time [min]
12
14
70
1500
BHP [psi]
30
45
40
b,th,fast
(P, ) - h [MPa]
35
30
b,th,biot
25
20
10
b,th,slow
b,th,FM
b,T2
b,th,
P
b,T1
P
0.1
0.15
r [m]
0.2
0.25
, min
10
b,T3,T4,T5
0.05
12
(P, ) - h [MPa]
CONCLUSIONS
, min
15
depth long
perf
depth short
perf
b,th,slow
b,th,FM, short
b,T2
b,T1
b,th,FM, long
b,th,
b,T3
b,T4
b,T5
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.1
r [m]
0.12
0.14
0.16
0.18
0.2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The insights from numerous technical discussions held
with Alexei Savitski, Mikhail Geilikman, Gene Scott,
John Dudley, Alexander Nezich, as well as with
Tiancheng Liang and Nailing Xiu from CNPC greatly
contributed to this study. The managerial support from
Claudia Hackbarth, Yuzhang Liu and Caineng Zou is
kindly acknowledged.
REFERENCES
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]