COMPLETION/STIMULATION

Rewriting the Rules for High-Permeability Stimulation

Stimulation of high-permeability formations has long been the domain of matrix treatments.

Now, short, wide fractures are being created to

Bob Hanna A classic fracture stimulation creates nar-

BP Exploration Inc. row conduits that reach deep into a forma-
Houston, Texas, USA tion—typically, about 1/10 in. [2.5 millime-
ters] wide and up to 1000 ft [300 m] long. Undamaged reservoir
Joseph Ayoub Since the 1940s, relatively low-permeabil-
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Damage
ity formations—less than 20 millidarcies
(md)—have been successfully fractured to
Bob Cooper Short, wide fracture
give worthwhile increases in productivity.
Houston, Texas, USA However, as formation permeability
increases, creating and propagating frac-
For help in preparation of this article, thanks to Paul
tures become more difficult and economi-
cally less necessary. In high-permeability
Martins, BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., Anchorage,
Alaska, USA; and Jack Elbel and Richard Marcinew, reservoirs, formation damage is usually
nShort, wide fractures bypass widespread
Dowell Schlumberger, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. formation damage and link undamaged
diagnosed as the major restraint on produc- rock with the wellbore.
tivity and matrix acidization treatments are
prescribed as the solution (see “Trends in up to 1 in. [2.5 centimeters] wide after clo-
Matrix Acidizing,” page 24). sure (above ). To appreciate how short, wide
But matrix acidization cannot solve every fractures stimulate high-permeability forma-
problem. The volume of damaged rock tions, one must examine the factors govern-
sometimes requires uneconomically large ing postfracture productivity.
quantities of acid. The damage may be The permeability contrast between the
beyond the reach of the matrix treatment. formation and the propped fracture is a key
Diverting acid into the right parts of the for- determinant of the optimum fracture length.
mation may also be difficult. Additionally, In low-permeability formations there is a
the aqueous treatment fluid or the acid large contrast—and therefore a high relative
itself may threaten the integrity of the well- conductivity—and increased fracture length
bore by dissolving cementing material that can yield improved productivity (next page ).
holds particles of rock together. In high-permeability formations, relative
An alternative strategy for stimulating conductivity is about two orders of magni-
high-permeability wells has therefore tude smaller. Increasing the length of con-
emerged: the creation of fractures that are ventional fractures offers only minimal
typically less than 100 ft [30 m] long and improvement in productivity and cannot be
justified economically. However, the pro-
ductive performance of the fracture is deter-
mined by the dimensionless fracture con-
ductivity which is directly proportional to
the fracture width.1 Conductivity can be
raised by increasing fracture width; in high-
permeability formations, this offers signifi-
cant potential improvements in productivity.

18 Oilfield Review
reach beyond wellbore damage and provide a conduit to undamaged reservoir rock.

Pinpointing the birthplace of high-perme-

High-permeability
ability fracturing is difficult, but it is clear formations
that work carried out by Sohio Petroleum 1.0

fracture length/drainage radius (x f /re)

0.9
Co. (now BP Exploration Inc.) inspired Low-permeability
0.8
much of today’s thinking. In 1984, in Prud- formations
0.7
hoe Bay, Alaska, USA, Sohio fractured a

Length of fracture,
0.6
Increasing productivity

well with a permeability of about 60 md. 0.5

The overriding aim of the exercise was to
stimulate the well while avoiding fracturing 0.4
into the oil/water contact (OWC) about 115 0.3
ft [35 m] below the lowermost perforation.2
In a relatively small fracturing treatment, 0.2

some 15,000 gal [57 m3] of gelled fluid 0.1

were pumped at 45 bbl/min, placing 12,000
lb [5440 kg] of proppant in the fracture.
This treatment was calculated to be suffi-
cient to create a fracture with a propped 10 2 10 3 10 4 10 5 10 6

length of 43 ft [13 m], which, based on the Relative conductivity

assumption that one foot of lateral exten-
sion would result in one foot of downward nIncrease in posttreatment productivity versus relative fracture
fracture migration, left the fracture easily conductivity—proportional to the permeability contrast between
short of the OWC. The treatment was a the formation and propped fracture—for a variety of fracture
mechanical success and production lengths (shown as fracture length/drainage radius). In these curves
increased by 133%—versus a theoretical for steady-state production, a normal, low-permeability fracture
treatment has a relative conductivity on the order of 10 5. Conse-
maximum of 160%. quently, there is scope to increase productivity by increasing
Rather than quantify fracture width, con- fracture length.
ventional terminology uses proppant con- But for high-permeability formations, relative conductivity is
centration—most commonly stated as about 10 3, and an increase in fracture length makes virtually no
difference. However, if a wider fracture can be created, fracture
pounds of proppant per square foot of frac- conductivity is increased, yielding a higher relative conductiv-
ture [lbm/ft2 ]—which is directly proportional ity. This increases productivity for a given fracture length and
to the width. A conventional, long and nar- offers the chance of raising productivity by increasing the frac-
row fracture may contain 0.5 lbm/ft 2 of ture length.
Adapted from McGuire WJ and Sikora VJ: “The Effect of Vertical
proppant. The Sohio job was designed to
Fractures on Well Productivity,” Transactions of the AIME 219 (1960):
place 1 lbm/ft2—modest by today’s stan- 401-403.
dards, which aspire to place 4 lbm/ft2 or more.
After this job, attention shifted to the 1. C = Kf W
fd
North Sea. The Valhal field, offshore Nor- KX f
way, has a soft chalk reservoir. Amoco Pro- where: Cfd is the dimensionless fracture conductivity,
K f is the permeability of the proppant pack, W is the
duction Co. found that, although the forma- width of the fracture, K is the permeability of the for-
tion was not highly permeable (about 2 md) mation and X f is the length of the fracture.
2. Hannah RR and Walker EJ: “Fracturing a High-Perme-
ability Oil Well at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska,” paper SPE
14372, presented at the 60th SPE Annual Technical
Conference and Exhibition, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA,
September 22-25, 1985.

October 1992 19
 it was very unstable and conventional stim- However, following some tip-screenout
A ulation was difficult. After acid fracturing, treatments, proppant flowed out of the
the acid-etched channels quickly collapsed fracture during posttreatment production.
as pore pressure was reduced. And after a This is caused by factors such as low effec-
conventional propped fracture, the proppant tive stress in the proppant pack or drag
Proppant became embedded in the soft rock, destroy- forces due to high-velocity flow in the con-
bridges
at tip ing fracture conductivity. ductive pack. Proppant flowback leads to
In 1986, Amoco opted to place a high reduced fracture conductivity or blockages
concentration of proppant in a wide fracture at the fracture-wellbore interface. If the
using a technique it called “tip screenout.” proppant is flowed to surface, damaging
In normal fracturing, the tip should be the erosion of the production equipment can
final part of the fracture to be packed with also occur.
proppant. But in tip screenout, the proppant Sand-control techniques have been
B forms a pack near the end of the fracture employed after fracturing to prevent prop-
early in the treatment. When additional pant flowback. The two main techniques
proppant-bearing slurry is pumped into the use resin-coated proppant or gravel pack-
fracture, its length cannot grow, so the width ing. Proppant coated with a curable resin
Proppant
increases (left ).3 consolidates once the proppant has been
At about the same time, in the UK sector placed in the fracture and resists drag during
of the North Sea, BP Petroleum Develop- production. Alternatively, the fracture treat-
ment Ltd. was applying tip screenout tech- ment can be followed by a gravel pack
Fluid niques to stimulate gas wells in the Raven- using a conventional screen to retain the
leakoff spurn South field. Permeability was 2 md proppant within the fracture (see “Sand
higher than gas wells that are normally frac- Control: Why and How?” page 41).
C
tured, but BP found that conductivity of In Indonesia, more than 30 treatments
long, conventional fractures limited the have been carried out that combine tip-
reservoir’s high rate of production, giving screenout fracturing with either resin con-
only a threefold increase in production. solidation or a gravel pack. These wells had
Proppant
fills Laboratory tests showed that up to 0.5 high skin factors but undamaged permeabil-
fracture lbm/ft2 of proppant in the fracture can be ities in excess of 100 md. Following treat-
“lost” largely through embedment. To com- ment, many now produce with low skin fac-
bat this loss in conductivity, stimulation pro- tors while adjacent conventionally-
grams were designed to create wide frac- completed wells have skins of 20 to 40 (see
tures, typically placing 3 to 4 lbm/ft 2 of ”Average Data From Three Types of Treat-
proppant. This “excess” of proppant ment,” next page, below left ).6
ensured that enough remained in the frac- Tip-screenout fracturing and gravel pack-
ture after embedment to deliver the ing treatments are also being used in combi-
designed conductivity. Subsequent treat- nation in the Gulf of Mexico, USA. Over the
ments in Ravenspurn South, using high past 12 months, more than a dozen com-
proppant concentrations, posted increases bined treatments in formations with perme-
nTip-screenout treatments place a high in production of up to sevenfold.4 abilities as high as 1 darcy have realized
proppant concentration and create frac-
tures that are usually less than 100 ft long Tip screenout also returned to Prudhoe two- to threefold improvements in produc-
and up to 1 in. wide. Bay. Since 1989, BP and ARCO Alaska Inc. tion (next page, below right).
A) The fracture is propagated to its have employed tip-screenout treatments and Experience around the world has enabled
desired length just as the proppant in
the slurry begins to bridge off near the report considerable success.5 development of a methodology for selecting
tip of the fracture, preventing further
propagation.
3. Smith MB, Miller WK and Haga J: “Tip Screenout 6. Peters FW, Cooper RE and Lee B: “Pressure-Pack
B) Additional slurry is pumped into the Fracturing: A Technique for Soft, Unstable Formations,” Stimulation Restores Damaged Wells’ Productivity,”
fracture increasing the net pressure SPE Production Engineering 2 (May 1987): 95-103. paper IPA 88064, Proceedings Indonesian Petroleum
inside the fracture, causing it to widen. 4. Martins JP, Leung KH, Jackson MR Stewart, DR and Association 17th Annual Convention, Jakarta, Indone-
C) Further dehydration of the slurry cre- Carr AH: “Tip Screen-Out Fracturing Applied to the sia, October 1988.
ates a pack of proppant that gradually Ravenspurn South Gas Field Development,” paper Peters FW and Cooper RE: “A New Stimulation Tech-
evolves from the tip toward the wellbore. SPE 19766, presented at the 64th SPE Annual Techni- nique for Acid-Sensitive Formations,” paper SPE
cal Conference and Exhibition, San Antonio, Texas, 19490, presented at the SPE Asia-Pacific Conference,
USA, October 8-11, 1989. Sydney, Australia, September 13-15, 1989.
5. Reimers DR and Clausen RA: “High-Permeability 7. Ayoub JA, Kirksey JM, Malone BP and Norman WD:
Fracturing at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska,” paper SPE 22835, “Hydraulic Fracturing of Soft Formations in the Gulf
presented at the 66th SPE Annual Technical Conference Coast,” paper SPE 23805, presented at the SPE Forma-
and Exhibition, Dallas, Texas, USA, October 6-9, 1991. tion Damage Symposium, Lafayette, Louisiana, USA,
Martins JP, Bartel PA, Kelly RT, Ibe OE and Collins PJ: February 26-27, 1992.
“Small Highly Conductive Hydraulic Fractures Near
Reservoir Fluid Contacts: Applications to Prudhoe
Bay,” paper SPE 24856, presented at the 67th Annual
SPE Technical Conference and Exhibition, Washington
DC, USA, October 4-7, 1992.

20 Oilfield Review
wells for tip-screenout treatments. 7 There
are three classes of candidate:
•Reservoirs with significant wellbore dam-
age, perhaps caused by formation col-
lapse as the pore pressure reduces during
depletion. Past matrix treatments have
failed, and short, wide fractures are
designed to bypass the damage and con-
nect the undamaged part of the reservoir Proppant
with the wellbore.
•Reservoirs with fines migration. A short,
wide fracture can alleviate this by reduc-
ing pressure losses and velocities in the
reservoir sand near the wellbore.
•Multiple pay zones in laminated sand-
shale sequences. The thin sand laminae nLaminated pay zone with sand-shale sequences. The sand lam-
may not communicate efficiently with the inae may be connected to the wellbore by short, wide fractures.
wellbore until a fracture provides a con-
tinuous connection to the perforations thinner than 5 ft (1.5 m) and the formation After a candidate well has been identified,
(above, right ). strength. Specialized techniques like the next stage is to design the treatment, a
Candidate selection is a multidisciplinary microresistivity logging may then be used to process that relies on knowledge of the
task. Basic openhole logs detect sands and detect thinner layers of interbedded sand- rock’s mechanical properties and an esti-
their bounding shales, and indicate their rel- shale laminae. Logs also detect water-bear- mate of the stresses in the reservoir and
ative permeability and degree of inva- ing zones which must be considered during adjacent rock (see “Cracking Rock: Progress
sion—gaining an insight into the formation’s the design. Pressure transient analysis is in Fracture Treatment Design,” page 4 ).
natural permeability before damage, the used to identify wellbore damage and quan-
depth of invasion, the presence of zones tify the production potential of the well.
Simulation
10 3 Data
Average Data From Three Types of Treatment
Treatment Type
Production rate, B/D

Average data Type A Type B Type C

Total vertical depth, ft 7240 3560 4400
Zone thickness, ft 68 32 48 Fractured
Zone permeability, md 72 53 60
Pad volume, gal 1600 5100 3500
Slurry volume, gal 685 2000 1740
Nonfractured
In-situ proppant concentration, lbm/ft2 3.8 2.1 1.2 10 2
0 30 60 90
Propped fracture length, ft 28 115
Production time, days
Propped fracture conductivity, md-ft 5670
Pretreatment oil production, BPD 1040 156 nPredicted and real productivity increase in a Gulf of Mex-
ico, USA, well stimulated in early 1992 using tip-screenout
Posttreatment oil production, BPD 2140 1313 fracturing.
Pretreatment skin 18
Posttreatment skin 2.3
Treatment Type A Treatment Type B Treatment Type C
A series of six Indonesian Two Indonesian wells Series of treatments
wells fractured using the fractured with tip-screenout performed on two offshore
tip-screenout technique. treatments performed exploration wells to create
Although all the wells were through gravel-pack tools vertical communication
potential sand producers no and screens to place a between several thin, high-
special sand-control small, highly conductive permeability zones that
techniques were employed. fracture and a gravel pack were believed to be water-
in a single step. and acid-sensitive.

October 1992 21
 Mechanical properties can be derived nFracturing high-permeability formations
in Indonesia. A specially modified twin
using cores, logs and direct in-situ measure- 50-bbl mixer is capable of mixing and
ments. In many cases, however, retrieving pumping 18 lbm/gal slurries at more than
good cores and then accurately testing them 20 bbl/min. A centralized control station
in the laboratory are difficult. Log-derived allows one operator to control and monitor
the complete treatment—essential as pump-
mechanical properties rely on density and ing times can be as short as 2 minutes.
sonic measurements. Both compressional
and shear sonic measurements work well in
consolidated, fast formations. But in soft, ments are used to determine the minimum
slow formations, conventional sonic tools in-situ stress, which equals the closure pres-
cannot measure shear wave velocity. How- sure of the fracture.
ever, a recently introduced dipole sonic tool Analysis of data from stress tests and
can now make these shear wave velocity larger-volume calibration tests—which frac-
measurements in any formation.8 ture the formation usually using gelled fluid
In practice, there is rarely a comprehen- without proppant—enables choice of the
sive collection of core and log data with most suitable fracture geometry model and
which to build a model predicting fracture confirmation of the fluid leakoff coefficient.
shape, used for treatment design. To plug proppant into the formation at sufficient Fracture geometry models of varying sophis-
this knowledge gap, data are collected using pressure to fracture the well. In normal, tication are available. All of them use the
stress tests. low-permeability stress tests pumping is basic processes that occur during fractur-
Stress tests consist of pumping a relatively then stopped and the pressure can be moni- ing—fluid flow in the fracture and leakoff,
small volume of ungelled fluid without tored during flowback. However, in high- proppant transportation and settling, and
permeability formations, the fluid normally rock response—to describe the relationship
leaks off into the formation rather than flow-
ing back. Stress test are repeated several
times and the resulting pressure measure-

22 Oilfield Review
between pressure and fracture shape and the proppant size, the greater the fracture hole memory gauges (below ). Other place-
produce criteria for fracture propagation. permeability. In gravel packs, the sand must ment evaluation techniques include use of
The models assume that rock is an elastic have intergranular spaces small enough to multiple-isotope tracers in the sand and
material, meaning that its deformation is keep formation sand at bay. temperature logs to estimate the fracture
reversible. Dowell Schlumberger is cur- To date, most wells have been treated height and assess the fracture’s communica-
rently examining whether this assumption using the same size proppant for the fracture tion with the perforated interval along the
holds for soft formations, as it is an impor- and the gravel pack. This simplifies proce- wellbore by tracing cooling anomalies
tant factor when looking at the fracture clo- dures but in most cases, proppant size tends where the fluid has entered the formation.
sure and the stress it exerts on the proppant to be smaller—and therefore of lower con- However, the most important indicators of
pack. If closure stress is less than antici- ductivity—than would ideally have been success are the well’s production responses
pated, the proppant pack could become employed if fracturing had been carried out both immediately after treatment and during
unstable during production—unless the alone. ARCO has been performing treat- the rest of its productive life. To date, these
treatment has included a gravel pack. ments with larger than normal sand sizes.9 indicate that the traditional guidelines ruling
Calibration tests also provide a more After the job is completed, the first perfor- out fracturing for high-permeability forma-
accurate way of measuring fluid-loss char- mance yardstick is its mechanical suc- tions have been successfully rewritten.—CF
acteristics of the fracturing fluid than can be cess—“Has everything gone according to
8. “Taking Advantage of Shear Waves,” Oilfield Review
devised in a laboratory. Fluid loss depends plan?” The effectiveness of the treatment 4, no. 3 (July 1992): 52-54.
on the viscosity and wall-building capability may then be assessed by comparing theoret- 9. Hainey BW and Troncoso JC: “Frac-Pack: An Innova-
of the fracturing fluid, the viscosity and ical net pressures (fracture propagation pres- tive Stimulation and Sand Control Technique,” paper
SPE 23777, presented at the SPE International Sympo-
compressibility of the reservoir fluid, and sure minus closure pressure) with pressures sium on Formation Damage Control, Lafayette,
the permeability and porosity of the forma- measured during the treatment by down- Louisiana, USA, February 26-27, 1992.
tion. In a formation with high porosity and
permeability, fluid loss can be controlled by
increasing the viscosity of the fracturing Simulation
fluid or enhancing the fluid’s wall-building Data
1000
capability on the fracture face by the addi-
tion of polymers and properly sized fluid- 500
Net pressure, psi

loss control agents.

Once the choice of fracturing fluid is con-
firmed, the next step is to design a pumping
schedule capable of delivering the neces- 100
sary high proppant concentrations. The data
generated by stress and calibration tests are
fed into the chosen fracture geometry
model, which calculates the volume
required to initially propagate the fracture to 2 5 10 20 50 100
a predetermined length. To ensure tip Production time, days
screenout, proppant concentration in the
fracture fluid is gradually increased during nComparing simulated pressures with the real thing. The
the treatment from zero at the start, to more effectiveness of a treatment can be judged by comparing
theoretical net pressures with pressures measured during
than 16 lbm/gal at the end. the job using downhole gauges. This plot of a tip-screen-
Continuous mix and batch mix treatments out fracturing job shows excellent agreement between
using high concentrations of proppant have the simulated and actual pressures.
been executed fairly smoothly. In the larger
continuous mix jobs maintaining high con-
centrations of sand may require specialized
blending equipment (previous page).
Choice of proppant size depends on the
ultimate fracture conductivity needed and
whether the treatment is being carried out in
conjunction with a gravel pack. The larger

October 1992 23