A Systematic Approach to De-Risk and Improve Shale Gas Horizontal Well Drilling

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiang Gao ◽  
Jiaxin Zeng ◽  
Jiajun Xie ◽  
Liang Tang ◽  
Wenzhe Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Shale Gas ◽  
Horizontal Well ◽  
Risk Mitigation ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Wellbore Stability ◽  
Drilling Process ◽  
Well Drilling

Abstract Horizontal well drilling contribute to a dramatic increase of shale gas production in unconventional reservoirs. However, the drilling is also risky and challenging with different types of drilling problems often encountered including stuck pipes, inflows, losses and pack-offs, etc. To reduce shale-gas development costs, shale gas operators are faced with finding effective solutions to minimize drilling risks and improve drilling efficiency. A holistic workflow, which can be divided into three steps: pre-drilled modelling and assessment, real-time monitoring, and post-drilled validation, is proposed. Based on the pre-drilled geomechanical modeling, mud weights, mud formulations and casing setting depths are optimized to ensure wellbore stability during the drilling process. Real-time operations involve monitoring drilling parameters and cavings characteristics (shape and volume), and providing updated recommendations for field drilling engineers to mitigate and reduce borehole instability related problems. During the post-drilled stage, the updated geomechanical model will be used for optimizing the drilling designs of upcoming wells. With geomechanics as foundation, a systematic workflow was developed to provide integrated solutions by using multiple technologies and services to reduce serious wellbore instability caused by abnormal formation pressures, wellbore collapse and other complex drilling problems. The implementation of the systematic and holistic workflow has proven to be extremely successful in supporting the drilling of shale gas wells in China. The integrated approach, which was applied in a Changning shale gas block in Sichuan Basin for the first time in March 2019, recorded an improvement in ROP by 111.2% and a reduction in mud losses by 89.9% compared with an offset well without the risk mitigation strategy applied in the same pad. The geomechanics-based approach provides a convenient and effective means to assist field engineers in mud weight optimization, drilling risk assessments, and horizontal well drilling performance evaluation. The approach can also be extended to reduce potential drilling risks and improve wellbore stability, all of which contributes to reducing drilling costs and optimizing subsequent massive hydraulic fracturing jobs.

scholarly journals Ensemble-based optimization of hydraulically fractured horizontal well placement in shale gas reservoir through Hough transform parameterization

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Xue ◽  
Shao-Hua Gu ◽  
Xie-Er Jiang ◽  
Yue-Tian Liu ◽  
Chen Yang
Keyword(s):  
Simulation Model ◽  
Shale Gas ◽  
Horizontal Well ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Hydraulic Fractures ◽  
Gas Reservoir ◽  
Well Drilling ◽  
Shale Gas Reservoir ◽  
Fractured Horizontal Well

AbstractShale gas reservoirs have been successfully developed due to the advancement of the horizontal well drilling and multistage hydraulic fracturing techniques. However, the optimization design of the horizontal well drilling, hydraulic fracturing, and operational schedule is a challenging problem. An ensemble-based optimization method (EnOpt) is proposed here to optimize the design of the hydraulically fractured horizontal well in the shale gas reservoir. The objective is to maximize the net present value (NPV) which requires a simulation model to predict the cumulative shale gas production. To accurately describe the geometry of the hydraulic fractures, the embedded discrete fracture modeling method (EDFM) is used to construct the shale gas simulation model. The effects of gas absorption, Knudsen diffusion, natural and hydraulic fractures, and gas–water two phase flow are considered in the shale gas production system. To improve the parameter continuity and Gaussianity required by the EnOpt method, the Hough transformation parameterization is used to characterize the horizontal well. The results show that the proposed method can effectively optimize the design parameters of the hydraulically fractured horizontal well, and the NPV can be improved greatly after optimization so that the design parameters can approach to their optimal values.

Integrated approach for the U-type horizontal well drilling & geosteering in shallow Turonian sands

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Valiakhmetov ◽  
V. Kramar ◽  
R. Khabibullin ◽  
I. Shmarin ◽  
V. Vorobev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Horizontal Well ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Well Drilling

Study Evaluates Fracturing Interference for Multiwell Pads in Shale Gas Reservoirs

2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (08) ◽  
pp. 67-68
Author(s):  
Chris Carpenter
Keyword(s):  
Hydraulic Fracturing ◽  
Shale Gas ◽  
Technical Conference ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Well Drilling ◽  
Recovery Potential ◽  
Shale Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Well Spacing ◽  
Southwest Region

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper SPE 201694, “Interwell Fracturing Interference Evaluation of Multiwell Pads in Shale Gas Reservoirs: A Case Study in WY Basin,” by Youwei He, SPE, Jianchun Guo, SPE, and Yong Tang, Southwest Petroleum University, et al., prepared for the 2020 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, originally scheduled to be held in Denver, Colorado, 5–7 October. The paper has not been peer reviewed. The paper aims to determine the mechanisms of fracturing interference for multiwell pads in shale gas reservoirs and evaluate the effect of interwell fracturing interference on production. Field data of 56 shale gas wells in the WY Basin are applied to calculate the ratio of affected wells to newly fractured wells and understand its influence on gas production. The main controlling factors of fracturing interference are determined, and the interwell fracturing interacting types are presented. Production recovery potential for affected wells is analyzed, and suggestions for mitigating fracturing interference are proposed. Interwell Fracturing Interference Evaluation The WY shale play is in the southwest region of the Sichuan Basin, where shale gas reserves in the Wufeng-Longmaxi formation are estimated to be the highest in China. The reservoir has produced hydrocarbons since 2016. Infill well drilling and massive hydraulic fracturing operations have been applied in the basin. Each well pad usually is composed of six to eight multifractured horizontal wells (MFHWs). Well spacing within one pad, or the distance between adjacent well pads, is so small that fracture interference can occur easily between infill wells and parent wells. Fig. 1 shows the number of wells affected by in-fill well fracturing from 2016 to 2019 in the basin. As the number of newly drilled wells increased between 2017 and 2019, the number of wells affected by hydraulic fracturing has greatly increased. The number of wells experiencing fracturing interaction has reached 65 in the last 4 years at the time of writing.

scholarly journals Research Risk Factors in Monitoring Well Drilling—A Case Study Using Machine Learning Methods

Symmetry ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1293
Author(s):  
Shamil Islamov ◽  
Alexey Grigoriev ◽  
Ilia Beloglazov ◽  
Sergey Savchenkov ◽  
Ove Tobias Gudmestad
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Anomaly Detection ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Learning Algorithms ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Machine Learning Algorithms ◽  
Gradient Boosting ◽  
Drilling Process ◽  
Well Drilling

This article takes an approach to creating a machine learning model for the oil and gas industry. This task is dedicated to the most up-to-date issues of machine learning and artificial intelligence. One of the goals of this research was to build a model to predict the possible risks arising in the process of drilling wells. Drilling of wells for oil and gas production is a highly complex and expensive part of reservoir development. Thus, together with injury prevention, there is a goal to save cost expenditures on downtime and repair of drilling equipment. Nowadays, companies have begun to look for ways to improve the efficiency of drilling and minimize non-production time with the help of new technologies. To support decisions in a narrow time frame, it is valuable to have an early warning system. Such a decision support system will help an engineer to intervene in the drilling process and prevent high expenses of unproductive time and equipment repair due to a problem. This work describes a comparison of machine learning algorithms for anomaly detection during well drilling. In particular, machine learning algorithms will make it possible to make decisions when determining the geometry of the grid of wells—the nature of the relative position of production and injection wells at the production facility. Development systems are most often subdivided into the following: placement of wells along a symmetric grid, and placement of wells along a non-symmetric grid (mainly in rows). The tested models classify drilling problems based on historical data from previously drilled wells. To validate anomaly detection algorithms, we used historical logs of drilling problems for 67 wells at a large brownfield in Siberia, Russia. Wells with problems were selected and analyzed. It should be noted that out of the 67 wells, 20 wells were drilled without expenses for unproductive time. The experiential results illustrate that a model based on gradient boosting can classify the complications in the drilling process better than other models.

scholarly journals An Integrated Approach to Water-Energy Nexus in Shale-Gas Production

Processes ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fadhil Al-Aboosi ◽  
Mahmoud El-Halwagi
Keyword(s):  
Shale Gas ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Water Energy Nexus
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