IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v12y2019i8p1469-d224003.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Analysis of Pressure Communication between the Austin Chalk and Eagle Ford Reservoirs during a Zipper Fracturing Operation

Author

Listed:
  • Sriniketh Sukumar

    (Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA)

  • Ruud Weijermars

    (Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA)

  • Ibere Alves

    (Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA)

  • Sam Noynaert

    (Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA)

Abstract

The recent interest in redeveloping the depleted Austin Chalk legacy field in Bryan (TX, USA) mandates that reservoir damage and subsurface trespassing between adjacent reservoirs be mitigated during hydraulic fracture treatments. Limiting unintended pressure communication across reservoir boundaries during hydraulic fracturing is important for operational efficiency. Our study presents field data collected in fall 2017 that measured the annular pressure changes that occurred in Austin Chalk wells during the zipper fracturing treatment of two new wells in the underlying Eagle Ford Formation. The data thereby obtained, along with associated Eagle Ford stimulation reports, was analyzed to establish the degree of pressure communication between the two reservoirs. A conceptual model for pressure communication is developed based on the pressure response pattern, duration, and intensity. Additionally, pressure depletion in the Austin Chalk reservoir is modeled based on historic production data. Pressure increases observed in the Austin Chalk wells were about 6% of the Eagle Ford injection pressures. The pressure communication during the fracture treatment was followed by a rapid decline of the pressure elevation in the Austin Chalk wells to pre-fracture reservoir pressure, once the Eagle Ford fracture operation ended. Significant production uplifts occurred in several offset Austin Chalk wells, coeval with the observed temporal pressure increase. Our study confirms that after the rapid pressure decline following the short-term pressure increase in the Austin Chalk, no residual pressure communication remained between the Austin Chalk and Eagle Ford reservoirs. Limiting pressure communication between adjacent reservoirs during hydraulic fracturing is important in order to minimize the loss of costly fracturing fluid and to avoid undue damage to the reservoir and nearby wells via unintended proppant pollution. We provide field data and a model that quantifies the degree of pressure communication between adjacent reservoirs (Austin Chalk and Eagle Ford) for the first time.

Suggested Citation

  • Sriniketh Sukumar & Ruud Weijermars & Ibere Alves & Sam Noynaert, 2019. "Analysis of Pressure Communication between the Austin Chalk and Eagle Ford Reservoirs during a Zipper Fracturing Operation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-28, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:12:y:2019:i:8:p:1469-:d:224003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/8/1469/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/8/1469/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ruud Weijermars, 2020. "Optimization of Fracture Spacing and Well Spacing in Utica Shale Play Using Fast Analytical Flow-Cell Model (FCM) Calibrated with Numerical Reservoir Simulator," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-24, December.
    2. Hao Wang & Hui Zhang & Jun Li & Anming Chen & Jun Liu & Tengfei Sun & Cong Lin, 2021. "Study on Annular Pressure Buildup in Offshore Heavy Oil Thermal Recovery Wells Considering Dissolved Gas Contained in Annuli," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-20, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:12:y:2019:i:8:p:1469-:d:224003. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.