Abstract
Breakdown pressure is the peak pressure attained when fluid is injected into a borehole until fracturing occurs. Hydraulic fracturing operations are conducted above the breakdown pressure, at which the rock formation fractures and allows fluids to flow inside. This value is essential to obtain formation stress measurements. The objective of this study is to automate the selection of breakdown pressure flags on time series fracture data using a novel algorithm in lieu of an artificial neural network.
This study is based on high-frequency treatment data collected from a cloud-based software. The comma separated (.csv) files include treating pressure (TP), slurry rate (SR), and bottomhole proppant concentration (BHPC) with defined start and end time flags. Using feature engineering, the model calculates the rate of change of treating pressure (dtp_1st) slurry rate (dsr_1st), and bottomhole proppant concentration (dbhpc_1st). An algorithm isolates the initial area of the treatment plot before proppant reaches the perforations, the slurry rate is constant, and the pressure increases. The first approach uses a neural network trained with 872 stages to isolate the breakdown pressure area. The expert rule-based approach finds the highest pressure spikes where SR is constant. Then, a refining function finds the maximum treating pressure value and returns its job time as the predicted breakdown pressure flag.
Due to the complexity of unconventional reservoirs, the treatment plots may show pressure changes while the slurry rate is constant multiple times during the same stage. The diverse behavior of the breakdown pressure inhibits an artificial neural network's ability to find one "consistent pattern" across the stage. The multiple patterns found through the stage makes it difficult to select an area to find the breakdown pressure value. Testing this complex model worked moderately well, but it made the computational time too high for deployment. On the other hand, the automation algorithm uses rules to find the breakdown pressure value with its location within the stage.
The breakdown flag model was validated with 102 stages and tested with 775 stages, returning the location and values corresponding to the highest pressure point. Results show that 86% of the predicted breakdown pressures are within 65 psi of manually picked values.
Breakdown pressure recognition automation is important because it saves time and allows engineers to focus on analytical tasks instead of repetitive data-structuring tasks. Automating this process brings consistency to the data across service providers and basins. In some cases, due to its ability to zoom-in, the algorithm recognized breakdown pressures with higher accuracy than subject matter experts. Comparing the results from two different approaches allowed us to conclude that similar or better results with lower running times can be achieved without using complex algorithms.
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