Evolution of Hydraulic Fracturing Operations & Technology Applications in India

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ravi Ramniklal Gondalia ◽  
Amit Sharma ◽  
Abhishek Shende ◽  
Amay Kumar Jha ◽  
Dinesh Choudhary ◽  
...  

Abstract From 2005 to 2020, the application of hydraulic fracturing technology in India has touched the length and breadth of the country in almost every basin and reservoir section. The variety of reservoirs and operating environment present in India governed this evolution over the past 15 years resulting in a different fit for purpose fracturing strategy for each basin varying from conventional single-stage fracturing (urban, desert & remote forested regions) to high volume multi-stage fracturing, deepwater frac-packs and offshore ultra-HPHT fracturing. The objective of this paper is to present the milestones along this evolution journey for hydraulic fracturing treatments in India from 2005 to 2020. This paper begins with a review of published industry literature from 2005 to 2020 categorized by reservoir type and the proven economical techno-operational fracturing strategy adopted during that period. The milestones are covered chronologically since the success or failure of technology application in one basin often influenced the adoption of novel hydraulic fracturing methods in other basins or by other operators during the initial years. The offshore evolution is branched between the west and the east coasts which have distinctly different journeys and challenges. The onshore evolution is split into 5 categories: Cambay onshoreBarmer Hills & Tight GasEast India CBM and shale gasAssam-Arakan BasinOnshore KG Basin Each of these regions is at different stages of evolution. The Barmer region is in the most advanced state of evolution with frac factories in place while the Assam-Arakan Basin is in a relatively nascent stage. Figure 1 presents estimated hydraulic stage count based on published literature underlining the exponential growth in hydraulic fracturing activity in India. This paper enlists the technical and operational challenges present in the onshore and offshore categories mentioned above along with the identified novel techno-operational strategies which have proven to be successful for various operators in India. A comparison is presented of the different timelines of the exploration-appraisal-development journey for each region based on the economic viability of fracturing solutions available today in the Industry. Lastly, specific non-technical challenges related to available infrastructure, logistics and social governance are discussed for each region. This paper concludes by identifying the next step-change in the evolution of hydraulic fracturing operations in India among the 5 categories. Each of Government, operators and service providers have important roles to play in expanding the adoption of this technology in India. These roles are discussed for each identified category with the perspective of continuing the country's journey towards energy security.

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Serena Magna Detto Calcaterra ◽  
Pierluigi Sedda ◽  
Giacomo Fulceri ◽  
Salvatore Luppina ◽  
Luca Mauri ◽  
...  

Abstract Primary production mechanism of a clean sandstone reservoir in a brownfield for oil production has been recently changed from natural depletion to waterflooding. Despite the apparently moderate petro-physical properties of the formation, injector wells performances were observed to be extremely poor, mainly due to: high drilling-induced formation damage and Fluids interaction within the reservoir (injection across the oil rim section). Several stimulation technologies have been applied to improve wells injection capability for pressure support optimization. Re-perforation via abrasive jetting, perforations wash through coiled tubing and various acid formulations via bullheading were attempted without achieving any significant increase in injectivity. Considering the modest rock permeability, the need to access a wider formation area to improve oil sweep efficiency and the crucial requirement to re-pressurize the reservoir, an additional card was played as last resort: hydraulic fracturing. This technique was not new to the area and already experimented by different operators. Several producer wells in different layers were hydraulic fracturing stimulated with proppant and/or acid in the past with a good rate of success. Why not to try then? Given the past experience on the same field with hydraulic fracturing in oil producers and accounting for well integrity and potential injectivity, one was chosen as suitable candidate. Offset wells hystorical data were used to build a hydraulic fracturing reservoir model and plan for the activity in details; operator and service providers engaged in a Frac Well On Paper activity in order to reduce any margin of error during field operations. An approach that proved successful. From there, the first trial well was planned and performed successfully. 4 other hydraulic fracturing jobs on 4 wells followed at close distance in time with different, but steadily comforting, results. Injection was improved from negligible initial values up to 2000 mc/day for the post-stimulation condition, exceeding the preliminary expectations. This paper introduces the steps taken to start the hydraulic fracturing campaign, the decision process that led to the design of the treatment, an overview of the execution phases, results well by well and lessons learned to optimize future campaigns.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Miriam R. Aczel ◽  
Karen E. Makuch

High-volume hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal drilling has “revolutionized” the United States’ oil and gas industry by allowing extraction of previously inaccessible oil and gas trapped in shale rock [1]. Although the United States has extracted shale gas in different states for several decades, the United Kingdom is in the early stages of developing its domestic shale gas resources, in the hopes of replicating the United States’ commercial success with the technologies [2, 3]. However, the extraction of shale gas using hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling poses potential risks to the environment and natural resources, human health, and communities and local livelihoods. Risks include contamination of water resources, air pollution, and induced seismic activity near shale gas operation sites. This paper examines the regulation of potential induced seismic activity in Oklahoma, USA, and Lancashire, UK, and concludes with recommendations for strengthening these protections.


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 11-16
Author(s):  
Giesela Rühl

The past sixteen years have witnessed the proliferation of international commercial courts around the world. However, up until recently, this was largely an Asian and a Middle Eastern phenomenon. Only during the past decade have Continental European countries, notably Germany, France and the Netherlands, joined the bandwagon and started to create new judicial bodies for international commercial cases. Driven by the desire to attract high-volume commercial litigation, these bodies try to offer international businesses a better dispute settlement framework. But what are their chances of success? Will more international litigants decide to settle their disputes in these countries? In this essay, I argue that, despite its recently displayed activism, Continental Europe lags behind on international commercial courts. In fact, although the various European initiatives are laudable, most cannot compete with the traditional market leaders, especially the London Commercial Court, or with new rivals in Asia and the Middle East. If Continental Europe wants a role in the international litigation market, it must embrace more radical change. And this change will most likely have to happen on the European––not the national––level.


2021 ◽  
pp. 073401682110208
Author(s):  
Mollee Steely Smith ◽  
Brooke Cooley ◽  
Tusty ten Bensel

The aging prison population has increased dramatically over the past two decades. As this population increases, correctional institutions are faced with health care challenges. Specifically, providing adequate end-of-life (EOL) care for terminally ill inmates has been a concern. Despite issues relating to providing EOL care, little is known about medical and correctional staff’s attitudes toward the implementation of EOL care. The purpose of this study was to understand the challenges faced by correctional and medical professionals, focusing on job satisfaction, obstacles, and emotional effects of providing EOL care in correctional institutions. Our data included 17 semistructured, face-to-face interviews with medical and correctional staff assigned to the EOL care unit in a southern state. Although the entire sample stated overall satisfaction with their job, participants noted several challenges and stressors, which included the lack of resources and difficulties in balancing care. Participants agreed that it was emotionally stressful to maintain appropriate relationships with the inmates, deal with patient manipulation, and be surrounded by dying and death. Implications are discussed relative to the needs and experiences of service providers and how to more effectively treat EOL inmate patients.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Michela Fazzolari ◽  
Francesco Buccafurri ◽  
Gianluca Lax ◽  
Marinella Petrocchi

Over the past few years, online reviews have become very important, since they can influence the purchase decision of consumers and the reputation of businesses. Therefore, the practice of writing fake reviews can have severe consequences on customers and service providers. Various approaches have been proposed for detecting opinion spam in online reviews, especially based on supervised classifiers. In this contribution, we start from a set of effective features used for classifying opinion spam and we re-engineered them by considering the Cumulative Relative Frequency Distribution of each feature. By an experimental evaluation carried out on real data from Yelp.com, we show that the use of the distributional features is able to improve the performances of classifiers.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002218562110039
Author(s):  
Eugene Schofield-Georgeson

Over the past two decades, industrial relations scholarship has observed a trend towards an increasingly punitive industrial environment along with the ‘re-regulation’ of labour law. Absent from much of this literature, however, has been an empirical and historical measurement or comparison of the scale and quality of this systemic change. By surveying coercive and penal federal industrial legislation over the period 1901–2020, this study shows empirically that over the last 40 years, there has been a steep increase in the amount of coercive federal labour legislation in Australia. It further measures and compares the volume of coercive labour legislation enacted specifically against ‘labour’ and ‘capital’ or both throughout the same period (1901–2020). Analysis reveals a correlation between a high volume of coercive labour legislation with low levels of trade union power and organisation. Argued here is that coercive labour legislation has been crucial to transitioning from a liberal conciliation and arbitration model of Australian industrial relations towards a neoliberal framework of employment legislation. In the former, regulation was more collective, informal and egalitarian (embodied by the sociological concept of ‘associative democracy’). Under a neoliberal framework, regulation is now more individualised, technical, punitive and rarely enforced, resulting in less equal material outcomes.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksander Valerievich Miroshnichenko ◽  
Valery Alekseevich Korotovskikh ◽  
Timur Ravilevich Musabirov ◽  
Aleksei Eduardovich Fedorov ◽  
Khakim Khalilovich Suleimanov

Abstract The deterioration of the reservoir properties of potential oil and gas bearing areas on mature and green fields, as well as the increase in the volume of hard-to-recover reserves on low-permeable reservoirs set us new challenges in searching and using effective development technologies to maintain and even increase the oil production levels. Based on successful international experience, Russian oil and gas companies use horizontal wells (HW) with multi-stage hydraulic fracturing (MSHF) for the cost-effective development of low-permeable reservoirs. Thus, since the first pilot works of drilling technologies and completion of HW with MSHF in 2011, at the beginning of 2020, over 1,200 HW with MSHF were drilled and came on stream at the fields of LLC RN-Yuganskneftegaz, about half of which are at the exploitation play AS10-12 of the northern license territory (NLT) of the Priobskoye field. In searching the best technologies and engineering solutions, the company tested different lengths of horizontal section of HW, the number of hydraulic fracturing (HF) stages and distances between hydraulic fracturing ports, as well as different specific mass of the proppant per frac port. Recently, there has been a tendency in design solutions to increase the length of the HWs and the number of hydraulic fractures with a decreasing distance between the frac ports and a decreasing specific mass of the proppant per frac port. This work studies the actual and theoretical efficiency of HW with MSHF of various designs (different lengths of horizontal section of HW and the number of HF stages) and to assess the viability of increasing the technological complexity, as well as to analyze the actual impact of loading the proppant mass per port on performing HW with MSHF. The study is based on the results of the analysis of the factual experience accumulated over the entire history of the development of the exploitation play AS10-12 of the NLT of the Priobskoye field of the Rosneft Company. In studying the viability of increasing the technological complexity, especially, increasing the length of horizontal section of HW, increasing the number of HF stages, and reducing the distance between the frac ports: we discovered the typical methodological errors made in analyzing the efficiency of wells of various designs; we developed the methodology for analysis of the actual multiplicity of indicators of wells of various designs, in particular, HW with MSHF relative to deviated wells (DW) with HF; we carried out the statistical analysis of the actual values of the multiplicity of performance indicators and completion parameters of HW with MSHF of various designs relative to the surrounding DW with HF of the exploitation play AS10-12 of the NLT of the Priobskoye field; we performed the theoretical calculation of the multiplicity of the productivity coefficient for the HW with MSHF of various designs relative to DW with HF for the standard development system of the exploitation play AS10-12 of the NLT of the Priobskoye field; we compared the actual and theoretical results. The paper also presents the results of studying the actual effect of changes of proppant's mass per port on performance indicators of HW with MSHF of the same design and with an increase in the number of fractures of the hydraulic fracturing without changing the length of horizontal section of HW. As for performance indicators, being the basis for estimating the efficiency of HW with MSHF of various designs, we used the productivity index per meter of the effective reservoir thickness and the cumulative fluid production per meter of the effective reservoir thickness per a certain period of operation. And as the completion parameters, we used the length of the horizontal section of HW, the number of HF stages, the distance between the frac ports, and the specific mass of the proppant per meter of the effective reservoir thickness per frac port. The results of this work are the determining vector of development for future design decisions in improving the efficiency of HW with MSHF.


Author(s):  
Francis Ojadi ◽  
Jackie Walters

Background: Since the past two decades, the Lagos seaports have experienced vessel and storage yard cargo congestion, resulting in dwell times of about 30 days for containerised imports and high trade logistics costs.Objectives: The purpose of this study was to identify the critical factors that impact the operational efficiency of the Lagos seaports with a view to improving liner trade activities.Method: The study adopted an operational-based approach to understand the dynamics of the various interfaces of the port value chain. The research paradigm adopted for the study was therefore a combination of constructivism and post-positivism paradigms, which entailed the exploration and understanding of the various stakeholders in the port value chain. The epistemology of the research relied on the use of the exploratory sequential mixed method research technique (i.e. the qualitative approach followed by the quantitative approach) at the operational level of port operations.Results: The result of the research showed that significant challenges exist and that some of these challenges cut across all functions of port operations. Challenges are experienced in the areas of corruption, trade fraud, transport infrastructure deficits, the absence of a supply chain culture and shortcomings in the execution of the ‘contract of customs’. Additionally, these factors include the deficiencies in services and facilities provided by state agencies and government-appointed service providers and private sector companies such as truckers, inland container depots, Inland Container Depots (ICDs) and terminal operators.Conclusion: Specific recommendations are made to address the issues identified which, if implemented, could significantly address the current inefficiencies observed in the Lagos seaport’s operations.


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