$40 Billion Learning Curve: Leveraging Lessons Learned to Minimize the Overall Investment in Unconventional Plays

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
C.N.. N. Fredd ◽  
J.L.. L. Daniels ◽  
J.D.. D. Baihly
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Learning Curve ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Barnett Shale ◽  
Eagle Ford Shale ◽  
Eagle Ford ◽  
Horizontal Drilling ◽  
Unconventional Resources ◽  
Retrospective Assessment ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The industry has made significant advances in the way we exploit unconventional resources such as source rock and tight reservoirs. Innovations in horizontal drilling and multistage fracturing have unlocked previously uneconomical plays, and technology has brought a step change in operational efficiency. Lessons learned from unconventional resources highlight collaboration and integrated reservoir-centric workflows as common traits for economic success. The development of unconventional resources in North America was aided by the readily available infrastructure, water resources, expertise, and a general understanding of potential sweet spots due to numerous well penetrations. Even with these favorable conditions, an estimated 40% of unconventional wells are uneconomical due to spatial variability in reservoir characteristics, lateral heterogeneity along the wellbores, accuracy of well placement, and variability in drilling, completion, and stimulation practices. This non-ideal economic performance also ineffectively consumes local resources such as water and proppant. This paper provides a retrospective assessment of the Barnett Shale and Eagle Ford Shale to highlight lessons learned and the associated value of those learnings. The impact of applying technology and utilizing a data-driven approach based on measurements will be assessed in terms of the investment required to achieve a given hydrocarbon production. The results indicate that these unconventional plays could have been developed with well counts reduced by the thousands, water consumption reduced by billions of gallons, and investment savings in the billions of dollars if initially exploited by applying the key lessons learned from over the past 30 years. This potential reduction in investment amounts to $40 billion for the Barnett Shale (shale gas) plus the Eagle Ford Shale (oil window) and represents the significant value of moving along the learning curve. Fortunately, there is no need to repeat this learning curve investment, as key lessons learned can be applied to other unconventional plays around the world. This learning curve is of specific value in international plays where local infrastructure, supply, and market conditions may not be as favorable as in North America, hence necessitating a different approach to optimize the overall investment when developing unconventional plays.

Regional assessment of the Eagle Ford Group of South Texas, USA: Insights from lithology, pore volume, water saturation, organic richness, and productivity correlations

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. SC125-SC150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Hammes ◽  
Ray Eastwood ◽  
Guin McDaid ◽  
Emilian Vankov ◽  
S. Amin Gherabati ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Organic Matter ◽  
Pore Volume ◽  
Water Saturation ◽  
Production Quality ◽  
South Texas ◽  
Eagle Ford Shale ◽  
Eagle Ford ◽  
The North ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Sweet Spots

A comprehensive regional investigation of the Eagle Ford Shale linking productivity to porosity-thickness (PHIH), lithology ([Formula: see text]), pore volume (PHIT), organic matter (TOC), and water-saturation ([Formula: see text]) variations has not been presented to date. Therefore, isopach maps across the Eagle Ford Shale play west of the San Marcos Arch were constructed using thickness and log-calculated attributes such as TOC, [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], and porosity to identify sweet spots and spatial distribution of these geologic characteristics that influence productivity in shale plays. The Upper Cretaceous Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas is an organic-rich, calcareous mudrock deposited during a second-order transgression of global sea level on a carbonate-dominated shelf updip from the older Sligo and Edwards (Stuart City) reef margins. Lithology and organic-matter deposition were controlled by fluvial input from the Woodbine delta in the northeast, upwelling along the Cretaceous shelf edge, and volcanic and clastic input from distant Laramide events to the north and west. Local oxygen minimum events along the South Texas margin contributed to the preservation of this organic-rich source rock related to the Cenomanian/Turonian global organic anoxic event (OAE2). Paleogeographic and deep-seated tectonic elements controlled the variations of lithology, amount and distribution of organic matter, and facies that have a profound impact on production quality. Petrophysical modeling was conducted to calculate total organic carbon, water saturation, lithology, and porosity of the Eagle Ford Group. Thickness maps, as well as PHIH maps, show multiple sweet spots across the study area. Components of the database were used as variables in kriging, and multivariate statistical analyses evaluated the impact of these variables on productivity. For example, TOC and clay volume ([Formula: see text]) show an inverse relationship that is related to production. Mapping petrophysical parameters across a play serves as a tool to predict geologic drivers of productivity across the Eagle Ford taking the geologic heterogeneity into account.

Investigation of Production-Induced Stress Changes for Infill-Well Stimulation in Eagle Ford Shale

SPE Journal ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (04) ◽  
pp. 1372-1388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuyang Guo ◽  
Kan Wu ◽  
John Killough
Keyword(s):  
Horizontal Wells ◽  
Eagle Ford Shale ◽  
Eagle Ford ◽  
Fracture Geometry ◽  
Complex Fracture ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Stress Changes ◽  
Sensitivity Studies ◽  
Stress States ◽  
The Impact

Summary Heterogeneous stress has a great effect on fracture propagation and perforation-cluster efficiency of infill wells. Principal-stress reorientation induced by depletion of parent wells has been investigated by previous numerical studies assuming uniform biwing fracture geometry along the horizontal wells. However, recent field diagnostics indicate that fractures along the horizontal wells are generally nonuniformly developed. In this study, we investigated the impact of depletion of parent wells with complex fracture geometry on stress states, and analyzed stimulation efficiency of infill wells by using an in-house reservoir geomechanical model for Eagle Ford Shale. The model fully couples multiphase flow and rock deformation in three dimensions based on the finite-element method, incorporating complex fracture geometry and heterogeneity. We used this model to accurately characterize pressure distribution and to update stress states through history matching production data of parent wells in Eagle Ford Shale. Depletion of parent wells with nonuniform fracture geometries, which has not been researched thoroughly in the literature, is incorporated in the study. Results show that magnitude and orientation of principal stresses are greatly altered by depletion, and the alteration is uneven because of nonuniform fracture geometries. Stress reversal monitored at the center of the infill location starts after 1 year of production, and it takes another 8 months to be totally reversed for 90°. We also performed sensitivity studies to examine effects of parameters on changes of magnitude and orientation of stress at the infill location, and found that effects of bottomhole pressure (BHP), differential stress (DS), and fracture geometry of parent wells are all significant, whereas effects of the reservoir elastic property are limited. Effects of production time of parent wells are also noticeable in all sensitivity studies. This work analyzes stress-state change induced by depletion of parent wells in Eagle Ford Shale, and provides critical insights into the optimization for stimulation of infill wells.

Lessons Learned From an Eagle Ford Shale Completion Evaluation

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio Centurion ◽  
Jean-Philippe Junca-Laplace ◽  
Randall Cade ◽  
Greg Presley
Keyword(s):  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Eagle Ford Shale ◽  
Eagle Ford

Understanding the Impact of Channel Fracturing in the Eagle Ford Shale Through Reservoir Simulation

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raphael Mark Altman ◽  
Anup Viswanathan ◽  
Jian Xu ◽  
Dmitri Ussoltsev ◽  
Shirley Indriati ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reservoir Simulation ◽  
Eagle Ford Shale ◽  
Eagle Ford ◽  
The Impact

Lessons Learned Developing the Eagle Ford Shale

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacky Mullen ◽  
Jeffrey Clark Lowry ◽  
K.C. Nwabuoku
Keyword(s):  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Eagle Ford Shale ◽  
Eagle Ford

Leveraging the Power of Historical Data and Already Emerged Technologies to Unlock the Unconventional Resources Potential in MENA Region

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
P.. Sharma ◽  
P.N.. N. Khanapurkar ◽  
A.. Thakar
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Fluid Management ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Directional Drilling ◽  
Fracturing Fluid ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
Horizontal Drilling ◽  
Potential Approach ◽  
Unconventional Resources ◽  
Public Data

Abstract With worldwide increases in the demand for hydrocarbons, finding and developing unconventional resources has become a global necessity. Outside North America, shale gas discoveries have been made in recent years; however, significant commercial production has been limited to North America. Finding and developing unconventional resources outside North America is the next big challenge for the oil and gas industry. Although the reported potential of unconventional gas resource volumes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is almost similar in size to that in the US, exploration and development of such resources is currently limited. Unconventional reservoirs have very different and distinct requirements from conventional reservoirs. The more “unconventional” a targeted resource, the more difficult it is to develop. Furthermore, for these difficult resources, highly specialized technologies have to be applied because of the unique requirements. Key challenges specific to the MENA region include the following: Limited exposure to unconventional sources leads to lack of infrastructure and high cost.Reservoir characteristics (rock and fluid properties) and geomechanics.Implementation of directional/horizontal drilling and completion technologies suited for the region. The most challenging aspect is using hydraulic fracturing (fluid availability and management, fracturing fluid and proppant selection, fracturing design, equipment) as it incurs the highest cost and deploys the maximum technological efforts. This paper highlights these associated challenges in developing unconventional resources and offers a potential approach to evaluate unconventional resources. Additionally, public data are reviewed and emerged technologies are used to unlock the potential of unconventional resources in MENA. A major service company has exhaustive and varied data from different geographies and resource types captured in its MENA state-of-the-art data center. A potential approach is included that extrapolates historically available data relevant to directional drilling, fracture treatment design and analysis, and fluid management to MENA conditions to facilitate understanding and overcome challenges associated with unconventional resources.

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