Doctoral Dissertations

Abstract

"Completion quality has a direct impact upon the maximum production rate at which a frac pack well should be operated. Best practices for frac pack well completions ensure the highest possible quality for the well completion. A novel frac pack well completion score card was developed based on best practices for frac pack well completions identified through consultation with industry experts. The score card systematically combines and assesses completions data readily available standard completion reports. The outcome of the score card process is a numerical completion quality rating, which combines all well design and frac pack operations information.

The completion quality rating is integrated with a proprietary screen erosion tool that determines fluid velocity exiting the perforations at the inside of the surface of the casing (Vc), and calculates an associated fluid velocity at the sand screen (Vs) based on results of a computational fluid dynamics model. A C-factor based on fluid velocity at the casing perforations is used to determine the safe drawdown operating limit for the frac pack well.

The frac pack completion score card provides a substantial improvement to previous methods of determining frac pack well operational limits, by combining all known factors contributing to well completion quality and identifying how those factors ultimately affect the well's maximum allowable drawdown. The frac pack score card also raises awareness of the best practices identified in the research and therefore promotes the use of those best practices during frac pack installation. The score card and associated screen erosion model have been tested and verified by industry, and have been accepted for industry use"--Abstract, page iii.

Advisor(s)

Dunn-Norman, Shari

Committee Member(s)

Bai, Baojun
Cawlfield, Jeffrey D.
Flori, Ralph E.
Wei, Mingzhen

Department(s)

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering

Degree Name

Ph. D. in Petroleum Engineering

Publisher

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Publication Date

2013

Pagination

xiv, 87 pages

Note about bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 84-86).

Rights

© 2013 Rickey Lynn Hendrix, All rights reserved.

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

File Type

text

Language

English

Subject Headings

Oil fields -- Production methodsPetroleum engineering -- Mathematical modelsFluid dynamics -- Mathematical models

Thesis Number

T 10657

Print OCLC #

922574888

Electronic OCLC #

922574987

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