Nature Had It Right After All!-Constructing a 'Plant Root'-Like Drainage System WithMultiple Branches and Uninhibited Communication With Pores and Natural Fractures

摘要

If reservoirs engineers could drill wells, they would surelyrnnot drill a single, small diameter hole, with the walls of thatrnhole damaged to the point they are initially impermeable!rnThey would probably drill a hole with no damage to the walls,rnpreferably with open fractures or wormholes emanating fromrnthat main hole. They would further likely construct more ofrnnetwork of branches, mimicking the root structure of plants,rnevolved to efficiently drain nutrients from a soil reservoir.rnThe problem, of course, has been that the technologyrnrequired to create such a drainage system has beenrncommercially unavailable. This situation changed, inrnVenezuela, in late 2005.rnThis paper describes several wells where multiple,rnrelatively short-length laterals were constructed, maintainingrncommunication with the natural fracture network of thernformation, imposing no damage. The paper details the targetrnreservoir's properties and its history of poor production. Thernnew production figures are contrasted to the historical fieldrnnumbers.rnThe method used was to simply dissolve a system of shortrnlaterals. This was achieved by pumping hydrochloric acidrnthough a specially designed jetting assembly, attached to thernbottom of a 1?” coiled tubing unit. This revolutionary methodrnnot only creates a “reservoir engineer's” hole, it does so usingrnsimple equipment at a low-cost. Further details on thernequipment are provided in the paper.