Assessment of the Production Gain from Refractured Wells in the Major Shale Plays in the United States

Abstract

Over the past decade, the oil industry witnessed an expansion in the refracturing activates instead of drilling and fracturing new wells. This work aims to test the efficiency of the refracturing treatments by analyzing the post refracturing production trend of wells in the most active shale plays in the United States (Bakken, Niobrara, Marcellus, Permian, Eagle Ford, Barnett, and Haynesville). FracFocus was used to collect data of more than 130,000 wells in the United States completed between 2012 and 2019. In this study, 39 refractured wells (Barnett wells were vertical, Niobrara wells were deviated, and the other shale plays were horizontal) in the created database were further processed by adding their production data to analyze the production data of the refractured wells and test the efficiency of refracturing as a stimulation technique to increase production. In terms of production gain, the results showed that the selected wells in the Eagle Ford shale play yielded the highest production gain from refracturing with a 174% increase of production post refracturing followed by Bakken (160%), Marcellus (133%), Barnett (46%), Niobrara (43%), Haynesville (34%), and Permian (32%), respectively. Overall, the highest production gain from refracturing is achieved during the second month after refracturing and the decrease of production gain starts during the third month after refracturing. On the other hand, the results showed that there are more factors than formation type and perforation length that need to be considered to predict the production response of refracturing as some wells showed a high gain during the first three months after refracturing, while other wells showed a lower production gain during the first three months after refracturing. Moreover, the refracturing operations have shown a production increase in vertical, deviated, and horizontal wells.

Department(s)

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering

International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

978-171383912-5

Document Type

Article - Conference proceedings

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2024 American Rock Mechanics Association, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jan 2021

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