Identify Wellbore Landing Zones-the Southern Midland Basin Case Study

摘要

The number of development benches is critical to the optimal field development plan.How to select the best horizontal wellbore landing zones to maximize the value of the field is a question that is often asked.University Lands(UL)manages over 2 million acres of land in the Permian Basin.Since 2010,there have been nearly 3,000 horizontal wells drilled and completed across the acreage in the unconventional reservoirs,including the prolific Wolfcamp formation that can be up to a few thousand feet thick in some parts of the Permian Basin.The purpose of this paper is to summarize the results of a study focusing on landing zones in the Southern Midland Basin.Geological models were built based upon multiple geological studies,well logging,and core data.The geological models include the distributions of reservoir properties and geo-mechanical properties,where hydrocarbon-in-place and rock mechanical properties were established section-by-section.At the same time,well drilling,completion,and production information from corresponding operators were compiled across UL acreage.By integrating the geological modeling results and well completion history,the well performance was analyzed to understand the impact of the different landing zones.A series of complex fracture models were created to study the impact of geomechanical properties of different areas on fracture height and length propagation and completion effectiveness(SPE 189855 and 194367).Then,multiple spacing scenarios,lateral and vertical,were modeled to maximize the value of full field development(URTeC 2019-554).Finally,possible landing zones were identified with the consideration of the reservoir qualities,geomechanical properties,well performance,possible hydrocarbon resource recovery,and economic value.In summary,the geological models provide us rich information to begin the process of identifying wellbore landing zones with reservoir property and hydrocarbon-in-place distributions,section-by-section and geological bench-by-bench.Optimal landing zones can be found by studying historical well performance together with completion designs.The overall field development plan should be optimized by considering the landing zones,well counts,and development economics.The workflow/procedure can be used for operators to identify the best landing zones given the specific geological setting and reservoir quality.In addition,our study results provide the operators a great foundation to optimize wellbore placement to best develop the hydrocarbon resources in the region.