Shell Ex ploration & Production

Understanding and controlling fractured

w ater injection in the Pierce field, UK Central
N orth Sea
Jeroen Snippe, Shell UK Exploration & Production (presenting)
Bernhard Hustedt, Shell Intnl. Exploration and Production B.V. (currently Brunei
Shell Petroleum Co. Sdn. Bhd.)
Copyright: Shell Exploration & Production Ltd.

DEVEX, Aberdeen
13th May 2009

By kind permission of the Pierce co-venturers: Oranje-Nassau Energie B.V. and

Nippon Oil Exploration and Production U.K. Limited
File Title

Special thanks go to Peter Schutjens and Hassan Mahani

19 / 05 / 2009
Shell Ex ploration & Production

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Shell Ex ploration & Production

Contents

Pierce overview
Water injection behaviour
Understanding induced fracturing
General principles
Data analysis
Simple Modelling
Sophisticated Modelling

Conclusions and Implications

Shell Ex ploration & Production

Pierce field, general overvie w

Background
Central North Sea (East Central Graben)
265 km east of Aberdeen
Discovered:1975 (South), 1990 (North)
Historical operators: BP, Ranger, Enterprise
Operated by Shell (92.5172%).
Co-venturers: Oranje-Nassau (3.7284%),
NOEPUK (3.7544%)
Twin salt diapir, steep dips
Faults radial, rarely seal (except in SE)
North Pierce Deposition Forties Fm. (palaeocene turbidite)
NTG ~ 60 %, porosity ~ 18%, perm ~15mD
Light Oil: 38 API with Primary gas caps

South Pierce
Shell Ex ploration & Production

Pierce field, development

Initial development (1999)
6 horizontal producers (+infill A9 in 2007)
N 2 gas injectors (all gas re-injected)
Successful, but little aquifer support

Water Injection (2005)

Needed for pressure support
Needed for recovery of downdip oil
4 water injectors (horizontal), South only
Early water breakthrough (this presentation)

Redevelopment
Currently being investigated
Find other way to recover downdip oil (e.g.
drill deep, artificial lift)
Water injection still plays a role

Gas Cap Blow Down

After end of economic oil production
 Shell Ex ploration & Production

W ater injection beha viour

A8z injection rate

A1 Pressure (m3 / hr)
(psi)

100 days
Good pressure support
Problematic sweep, A1 watered out quickly
Why did this happen? Understanding this is crucial for Pierce waterflood control and optimisation
Extensive integrated analysis, for all well pairs. Main data source: real-time injection pressures (THP)
Initial focus on A8z - A1 because of watering out of A1. Covered in this presentation.
Shell Ex ploration & Production

Ra w d ata analysis: H all plot

Injectivity suddenly decreases with rate while
injection pressure stays nearly the same:
clear sign of dynamic fracture behaviour

Hall curve

Rate
Inj. pressure

Injectivity

Cumulative water injected (bbl)

 Shell Ex ploration & Production

Ra w d ata analysis: A 8z step-rate test

4000
Max rate of mud
pumps: 11,500 bbl/day
FIP (Fracture Initiation
3500 Pressure): 3,100psi

3000

THP 2500
THP [psi]

(psi) 2000

1500

Fractured injection
1000
Pressure (FPP) nearly rate
500
Matrix independent
injection
0
0 2 000 4 000 6 000 8 000 10 000 12 000
Injection Rate [bbl/day]
Injection rate (bbl / d)

Again, clear sign of dynamic fracturing

Shell Ex ploration & Production

Dyna mic beha viour of induced fractures

Determines
magnitude of
Fracture
Propagation
Pressure

Fracture grows or
shrinks over time due
to rate changes,
reservoir pressure
increase, ...
Shell Ex ploration & Production

3D geomechanical model

Gives key input parameters: minimum minimum

total principle stress S3 magnitude
and orientation
Magnitude of S3 consistent with FPP
from step-rate test
Orientation: S3 wraps tangentially
around salt diapir
So any induced fractures will grow
radially to & away from salt
 Shell Ex ploration & Production

The key question

How big can these fractures grow in Pierce?

Salt
Laterally? (is this what watered out A1, or was it e.g. due to a
high perm streak?)
Vertically? (does fracture connect to entire reservoir thickness, or
only part of it thus reducing sweep efficiency?)

Oil
Producer
Water
Fracture half-length Xf injector

Fracture height h
Xf
Reservoir height H
Conformance = h / H
h
H
 Shell Ex ploration & Production

Tools used for understa nding fracture gro wth

Increasing sophistication
Incorporation of fracture
growth physics
PWRI-FRAC FRAC-IT
[Shell] [Shell]
1D 3D

lu g in
O p
IF
h e ll]
[S
Saphir
Hall Plot
(Kappa)
1D

Incorporation of reservoir detail

 Shell Ex ploration & Production

Xf and h from P WRI-FRAC callibrated

to step-rate test
4000 12 000

3500 10 500

Pressure 3000 9 000

(psi) Injection rate
(bbl / d)
Pressure (psi)

2500 7 500

Rate, bpd
2000 6 000

1500 4 500
Surface Pressure [Rigfloor]
1000 3 000
THP [PWRI-FRAC ]
Rate [Rigfloor]
500 1 500
Rate [PWRI-FRAC]
0 0
00:00 01:12 02:24 03:36 04:48 06:00 07:12 08:24 09:36 10:48 12:00
Time

12 hours
PWRI-FRAC predicts THP (match quality indicator) and fracture sizes as function of time
Good match over relatively short time duration of step-rate test
At end of injection fracture starts becoming vertically constrained (h = 48 ft, 2*Xf = 60 ft)
 Shell Ex ploration & Production

Prediction over full injection history

Step-rate test
Pressure
(bar)

2.5 years

PWRI-FRAC cannot match THP over full injection history

Need better reservoir description to model fracture dynamics on this timescale!
Can we get Xf and h over this time scale using a different method?
 Shell Ex ploration & Production

Xf and h from PTA on pressure fall-offs

Pressure Transient Analysis
(PTA) analyses shut-in periods
rather than flowing periods THP (data)
THP (model)
Main parameters to be
extracted:
perm * fracture height kh
[not h itself] Injection
Fracture half-size Xf rate
Fault distance L

THP
Saphir
THP derivative 2.5 years
Xf, L
kh Saphir

Saphir + IFO plugin

40 days
10 hours Change in kh and Xf,L over time
Similar results between the two methods
 Shell Ex ploration & Production

PTA summ ary

Difference in fall-off signals over time indicates vertical shrinkage

and horizontal growth, and possibly fracture re-initiation
Consistency between the two methods increases confidence in
interpretations...
But proximity to a sealing fault leads to some ambiguity (Xf vs. L)
Can we get confirmation of Xf and h from an independent
method?
As we have seen, not with PWRI-FRAC on 2.5 year timescale
But we can if we incorporate a better reservoir description: FRAC-IT
 Shell Ex ploration & Production

Fully integrated fracture model FRAC-IT

3D reservoir simulation grid
Full-physics fracture propagation
calculation
Full-physics reservoir simulator (coupling to
in-house reservoir simulator)
3D integration of geomechanics, wells,
geology, reservoir engineering
For details on FRAC-IT see SPE 95726 (Hustedt et. al.)
Producer fracture

Injector

Match to THP over full injection history much

better than with simpler tool PWRI-FRAC
THP (model)
THP (data) Assuming re-initiation of the fracture gives a
further improved match (not shown here)
3D model allows full analysis within the
reservoir simulator of 3D sweep pattern etc.
1.5 years
Shell Ex ploration & Production

Consistency betw een methods?

Yes! (assuming re-initiation)

Both methods indicate length growth over time, despite lowering of rates
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Conclusions and Implications

Technical conclusions
Simple data analysis proves dynamic element (fracture growth / shrinkage)
Determination of fracture size (Xf and h) over time is possible from real-time pressure data (THP)
Multiple analysis / modelling tools lead to consistent results
Only the sophisticated, fully integrated 3D model is capable of modelling the dynamics over a longer
time period (years)

Implications for Pierce field management

Water injection rates need to be limited in order to avoid fractures growing into producers
Due to limited vertical conformance, some layers will not be swept efficiently
With another spatial configuration of water injectors (and / or better injection control along the
completion), a better areal and vertical water sweep efficiency might be possible, but will remain
challenging

For more details see IPTC 12533 (accepted for publication in SPERE journal)
Shell Ex ploration & Production

Understanding and controlling fractured

w ater injection in the Pierce field, UK Central
N orth Sea

Thank you for your attention.

Q uestions ?
Presenters biography
Shell Ex ploration & Production

Jeroen Snippe is a Reservoir Engineer at Shell. He started his career in

1997 in the Shell reservoir simulator development team in The
Hague, and then moved to Aberdeen in 2003. He has worked on
several North Sea fields, since 2007 on the Pierce field. Jeroen
obtained a PhD in physics prior to joining Shell.