Hydraulic Frac Diagnostics Making Wide Tracks In Path To Well Profitability

摘要

Houston-Stimulation is as important to the well bore construction process as the drilling phase itself, maximizing the net present value of the reservoir by enhancing production rates, increasing the amount of economically recoverable reserves, and lowering per-barrel operational costs. Stimulation also represents a significant part of overall well costs. In fact, stimulation costs can equal or even exceed drilling costs in certain types of reservoirs. Hydraulic fracturing is one of the most widely applied stimulation methods, but considering the significance of reservoir stimulation on the performance of the well over its life cycle and the high cost to refrac a well, proper treatment design and diagnostics are critical to ensuring that a job accomplishes the desired goal of fracturing the surrounding rock formation to increase hydrocarbon communication with the bore hole. Other than perhaps the choice of where to drill, no other factor has as large an impact on the ultimate productivity of a typical U.S. reservoir as the effectiveness of the hydraulic fracture treatment.