Integration of Geophysics and Engineering for Geomechanical Earth Modeling in a Midland Basin Development Project, Midland/Ector Counties, Texas

摘要

Current state-of-the-art for development of unconventional prospects is to integrate geology, geophysics and engineering for a comprehensive reservoir description that increases the probability of drilling economically successful wells. To achieve this, a project was initiated to build a high quality integrated data set to define the structure, stratigraphy, and rock mechanics of a stacked reservoir sequence in a Midland Basin prospect, and to use this reservoir description to (1) analyze past completions and production, and (2) high-grade multiple stacked options for new lateral locations. Therefore, an extensive data set over the prospect area was compiled and used for this project. The workflow and results of the data processing and analysis was recently published and so is not reproduced here. The primary take- away from that work was the creation of a geocellular model that was then populated with rock and fluid properties, including principal stresses, to form a 3D mechanical earth model (MEM). An important use of the MEM is completions frac modeling. These models can be run on existing vertical wells to determine the most optimal lateral landing points or they can be run on completed laterals, incorporating time- transient pressure history matching to calibrate the frac model. This paper discusses the theory and practice of using 2D planar frac modeling on vertical wells for optimal landing point determination.