IPTC 11347

An Integrated Evaluation of Successful Acid Fracturing Treatment in a Deep Carbonate

Reservoir Having High Asphaltene Content in Burgan Field, Kuwait
Qasem Dashti, SPE, Mir Kabir, SPE, Raju Vagesna, SPE, Feras Al-Ruhaimani, SPE, Kuwait Oil Company, and Hai Liu,
SPE, Schlumberger

Copyright 2007, International Petroleum Technology Conference

This paper was prepared for presentation at the International Petroleum Technology
Conference held in Dubai, U.A.E., 4–6 December 2007.
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Abstract
This paper presents the process of candidate well selection,
design, execution and evaluation that lead to the successful
implementation of acid fracturing treatment in Marrat field.
The acid fracturing treatment is quite challenging due to
presence of high pressure/high temperature and high
asphaltene content in the crude oil which renders the situation
even more difficult because of fluid incompatibility issues.
The formation tends to produce oil with asphaltene content
when the flowing bottomhole pressure is drawn below the
Asphalting Onset Pressure (AOP). An engineering solution
was urgently needed to enhance the productivity of wells and
to mitigate the aspheltene deposition issue by allowing the
wells to produce above the AOP. The option of acid fracturing
was evaluated and found to be feasible to alleviate the
problems.
The paper details an optimization workflow and integrated
evaluation process that improve the treatment performance.
Detailed fluid system used in the treatment is discussed in
details including the application of polymer-free viscoelastic
surfactant based fluids. Also, a surveillance program was
implemented to monitor and evaluate the acid treatment.
Introduction
The Marrat reservoir in Magwa field of the Greater Burgan
area has been producing since 1984 under a combination of
rock and fluid expansion drive with low amount of reported
water production. Lack of adequate aquifer support has
caused field reservoir pressures to decline from an initial
pressure of 9600 psia to the current average of about 8700 psia
over a 15-year period.
The reservoir is under saturated and contains high quality
light crude. However, production records show frequent
asphaltene plugging problems in the production strings.
Recent laboratory studies indicate a high asphaltene
flocculation onset pressure of 6200 psia for the Magwa oil.
This finding suggests the urgent need to implement an
appropriate reservoir management strategy to conserve
reservoir energy and to maintain the formation pressure much
higher than the asphaltene onset pressure, to prevent
asphaltene deposition within the reservoir in addition to
accelerating oil recovery. One viable approach is to improve
oil production. Improved oil production is required for Marrat
wells to increase production and maintain the flowing
bottomhole pressure above the AOP by reducing the pressure
drop taking place in the formation particularly near wellbore.
Production improvement can be achieved through the acid
fracturing as it will be discussed in details in this paper. The
planning and execution process of the acid fracturing
treatment that was implemented is shown in Fig. 1. The
detailed steps within this process are listed in Table 1.
Planning &
Execution Process

The first candidate well was fractured in June of 2006,

achieving an increment of production from 2,798 BOPD to
5,353 BOPD maintaining the same wellhead pressure. The
field results showed a significant improvement on post- Phase 1: Phase 2: Phase 3:
fracture production and flowing pressure at both wellhead and Acid Fracturing Design Treatment Execution Post-Job Evaluation
bottomhole. A post-fracture pressure buildup test indicated a
fracture linear flow with a fracture half length of 105 ft, high
conductivity of 19,600 md-ft and an equivalent skin value of Fig. 1- Planning and execution process of the acid
-5. The success accelerated the application of the treatment in fracturing treatment
other candidate wells chosen from the initial study.
2 IPTC 11347

Table 1 – Phases of planning and execution process of the Well Performance Analysis
acid fracturing treatment. After possible candidates were selected from the field review,
Phase 1: Phase 2: Phase 3: a detailed individual well analysis was carried out to
Acid Fracturing Design Treatment Execution Post-Job Evaluation
understand the current well performance and evaluate the
1. Well candidate selection
2. Well performance analysis:
1. Wellbore preparation:
• Integrity Test
1. Treatment analysis/injectivity
test analysis production enhancement potential. The analysis was
• Pressure Buildup analysis • Tubing Pickling 2. Actual production
performance
completed by following the procedures outlined below:
• Nodal Analysis • Tree saver installation
• Production Forecast 2. Treatment fluid filtration to 1 micron 3. Pressure buildup analysis
4. Production optimization using
3. Fracture design:
• Stress/Mechanical Model
3. DataFrac execution:
• Injectivity Test
Nodal Analysis − Review of open-hole logs and past pressure buildup tests
• DataFRAC Design
• Acid Frac design
• Pressure falloff Test
• Optimizing main treatment
to identify the formation properties for model building,
• Simulation Results 4. Main acid fracturing treatment: i.e. formation capacity (kh), skin and reservoir pressure.
Actual Measured Pumping
−
4. Compatibility tests with crude oil:
• 15% HCL Schedule/Stage Pressures & Rates Build a nodal analysis model with the results obtained
• VDA
• ClearFRAC
from above analysis, and then match with the actual
production performance1, 2, 3, 4.
− Evaluate the equivalent skin that the proposed acid
fracturing treatment could achieve.
Typical well completion − Forecast the future well performance and evaluate the
More than half of the wells in this field are completed with 7 economics of the proposed treatment5.
5/8 in. casing cemented near the top of the reservoir with a 5
½ in. liner set through the producing interval. The remaining The first candidate well (Well A) was perforated in Middle
wells are completed with 7 ¾ in. casing. All wells are Marrat section, and produced about 2798 BOPD at 1780 psi
equipped with 3 ½ in. tubing set on a packer. Inner tubing flowing wellhead pressure (see Fig. 3). A pressure buildup test
combinations range from a single 2 7/8 in. or combinations of performed in November 2004 was analyzed6, 7, and a kh value
2 7/8 in. and 2 3/8 in. respectively. The wells flow naturally. of 841 md-ft and skin of 0.1 were obtained from the analysis
Fig. 2 shows a typical well completion schematic. as shown in Fig. 4. One can clearly estimate pressure losses in
the reservoir and in the wellbore from pressure buildup test
data8, 9, 10.

7 5/8”
Casing
L = 10,000 ft

3.5“ Tubing
L = 9,500 ft

Fig. 3 - Candidate well production history plot showing

2 7/8“ Tubing production decline
L = 1,600 ft

2 3/8“ Tubing
L = 45 ft

5.5”
Liner
Mid Point L = 2,100 ft
@ 11,500 ft

Fig. 2 - Typical well completion schematic

Fig. 4 - Pre-acid fracture pressure buildup analysis
showing radial flow
IPTC 11347 3

As showing in Fig. 5, pressure loss in the reservoir was

2,391 psi which is considered to be high pressure loss. This
high value of pressure loss could cause flowing bottomhole
pressure to fall below AOP and raise the risk of asphaltene
precipitation around the wellbore causing formation damage.
The results of both production and buildup tests were put into
a nodal analysis model to match the actual well performance.
It was found that the actual well performance was matched
with the modeled result without any adjustment on the
reservoir parameter shown in Fig. 6, which indicates that the
results from the pressure buildup analysis were very accurate.
It gave a Production Index (PI) of 0.81 STB/day/psi. The
model was then used to forecast the future well performance
with the sensitivity analysis on post-fracturing skin as shown
in Fig. 7. It indicates that the production can be increased up
to 4838 BOPD with the same wellhead pressure, and gives a
PI of 1.67 STB/day/psi.
Fig. 6 - Nodal analysis to match the actual well
As shown in Table 2, the well performance can be performance
significantly improved with an effective acid fracturing
treatment. This will not only yield an increased oil production
rate but also reduced pressure drawdown. It means that the
well can be flowed at much higher downhole flowing pressure
without compromising the oil production rate.

Table 2 – Future well performance with various skin

values
Pwh, psi 1780 1780 1780 1780 1780 1780
Pwf, psi 5267 5339 5412 5500 5634 5811
Skin 0.1 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5
Qo, BOPD 2798 3064 3388 3785 4252 4838
ΔP, psi 3433 3361 3288 3200 3066 2889
PI, std/d/psi 0.81 0.91 1.03 1.18 1.39 1.67

Fig. 7 - Future well performance prediction

Fig. 5 – High pressure losses in the reservoir and in the
wellbore.
Treatment Design
In-situ stress, in particular the minimum in-situ stress (termed
as the fracture closure pressure, the average in-situ stress for
non-homogeneous zones) is the dominant parameter
controlling fracture geometry. Stress differences between
different geological layers are the primary controlling factor
over the important parameter of height growth. The stress also
has a large bearing on material requirements, pumping
equipment and well completion etc., required for a treatment,
since the bottomhole pressure must exceed the in-situ stress
for fracture propagation. Therefore, the detailed design of
fracture treatments required detailed information on the in-situ
stresses11.
Normally the stress profile can be derived from Dipole
Sonic Imager (DSI) log with measurement of both
compressional and shear wave slowness, and calibrated
through either laboratory rock mechanical tests or data frac
(short injection and falloff test)11.
However, the DSI log was not available for this candidate
well, and therefore the offset wells were investigated to
develop a geo-mechanical model for the fracture simulation.
4 IPTC 11347
The approach was to build a correlation between
compressional wave slowness (DTC) and shear wave slowness
(DTS) against one of the lithology information for the offset
well in which DSI log was available12, such as porosity,
gamma ray, and shale content, etc. Then this correlation could
be applied to the candidate well to calculate shear wave
slowness which was missing for stress profile computation.
After accessing all the options, it was found that gamma ray
can be correlated to the relation of DTC and DTS, which is
shown in Fig. 8. Thus the equations were derived for each
gamma ray range and then applied to the candidate well. The
derived stress profile is shown in Fig. 9.
Fig. 8 - Relationship of DTC and DTS in the offset well
against different GR correlation
Fig. 9 - Derived stress profile for the candidate well
Acid fracturing is a stimulation process in which acid,
usually hydrochloric acid (HCl), is injected into a limestone or
dolomite formation at a pressure sufficient to fracture the
formation or to open existing fractures. As the acid flows
along the fracture, portions of the fracture face are dissolved.
Since flowing acid tends to etch in a non-uniform manner,
conductive channels are created which usually remain open
after the fracture closes. The length of the etched fracture is
determined by the acid type, strength, volume, acid leak-off
parameters, reaction rate and spending rate of acid. These
factors are mutually dependent upon each other. The
effectiveness of the acid fracturing treatment is largely
determined by the length of the etched fracture.
A new approach was proposed to overcome two main
problems, namely fracture extension and well cleanup. It uses
a nonreactive viscous pad fluid for fracture initiation followed
by alternating stages of acid and diversion. The pad fluid
initiates a fracture for the first of acid stage to follow. The first
acid stage etches a portion of the fracture face and also creates
leak off wormholes, which are controlled by the diverter in the
second acid stage. This allows the second acid stage to fill up
the initiated wormholes and prevents the following acid stages
from entering the established wormholes. This acid stage will
also etch the next increment of fracture as well as creating new
wormholes in the next fracture increment. The process is
repeated until the designed treatment volumes are depleted.
Visco-elastic surfactant (VES) based fluid systems have
been successfully used in fracturing treatments for many
years13, 14. The mechanism and benefit of the system has been
detailed in previous publications and compared to polymer
based fluid systems. There are two types of VES fluid systems
proposed in the treatment: one is nonreactive VES system
composed of a visco-elastic surfactant and brine to open up
the fracture by building hydrostatic pressure, thereby creating
fracture length and hydraulic width. The other is HCl based
VES system to provide temporary diversion by building high
viscosity upon acid spending. The high viscosity temporarily
blocks the wormholes formed in the rock matrix, forcing the
following pad stage to be diverted, thereby allowing the next
stage of plain acid to cover the untreated area.
The treatment was designed to be pumped in three stages
in order to achieve an etched fracture half-length of 71.5 ft
with an average conductivity of 1609 md-ft. The pumping
schedule is presented in Table 3 and simulation results are
shown in Fig. 10.
Fig. 10 - Simulation results showing 71.5 ft frac half-length
Due to high aspheltene content in the crude oil, it has a
high tendency of forming emulsion and sludge while
contacting with the treatment fluids. Therefore, compatibility
between proposed treating fluids and formation fluids was
IPTC 11347 5

evaluated before pumping into the well, i.e. the rate of As shown in Table 4, the sample No.2 with a de-
separation, phase condition, and emulsion or sludge forming emulsifier gives 100% separation within 10 minutes after
tendencies, etc. The tests were carried out with the API putting into the water bath, and there is no sludge tendency.
recommended procedure (RP-4215). All the treatment fluids, Whereas, the sample No.1 without de-emulsifiers shows no
including 15% HCl, VES pad fluid and VES diverting acid, separation after one hour, which indicates that the crude oil
were tested and the results are shown in Table 3 through has a high tendency of forming emulsion with any foreign
Table 5. fluid. The same results were obtained from the tests with VES
acid diverter shown in Table 5.
Table 3 - Designed pumping schedule
Job Description If an emulsion occurs between VES pad fluid and crude
Stage Pump Fluid Stage Acid oil, a multifunctional surfactant preflush is required to enhance
Name Rate Name Fluid Conc. the cleanup and the preflush volume can be optimized in the
(bbl/m Volume (%)
in) (gal) lab. This multifunctional surfactant preflush can also give the
PAD 25-14 6% VES PAD 5000 0 following benefits to the treatment:
ACID 13-16 15% HCL 3500 15
DIVERTE 35 7.5% VES 6000 20 • Remove any organic deposit (e.g. asphaltene) formed
R Diverting acid
PAD 35-14 6% VES PAD 5000 0
in the near wellbore region during the production
ACID 13-18 15% HCL 3500 15 • Enhance the cleanup of all the VES fluids
DIVERTE 35 7.5% VES 6000 20 • Reduce the surface tension and capillary pressure
R Diverting acid during the flowback period
PAD
ACID
35-15
13
6% VES PAD
15% HCL
5000
4000
0
15
• Act as a spacer between treatment fluids and crude
FLUSH 15 4% NH4CL Brine 3154 0 oil to prevent the emulsion

Table 4 - 15% HCl compatibility test results with The samples shown in Table 6 are mixed with
formation crude oil multifunctional surfactant preflush fluid at different ratio, and
Acid Separation then tested with crude oil by following the sample procedures
Ratio
Sample
Fluid with Oil
% with Time in min as the other fluid system. It is clear that even 10% preflush
No. fluid will give 90% emulsion separation within one hour, and
[ml] 5 10 20 30 40 60
the higher percentage (30%) gives even better results (94%
Without
1 De- 50:50 0 0 0 0 0 0 emulsion separation within 30 minutes). Therefore, it was
emulsifier decided to pump 170 bbls multifunctional surfactant preflush
With as the first part of data frac fluid to enhance the fluid cleanup.
2 De- 50:50 88 100 100 100 100 100
emulsifier

Treatment Execution
Table 5 - VES diverting acid compatibility test results with
formation crude oil Well Preparation:
Acid Separation
Ratio Since the well completion was installed many years ago, well-
Sample % with Time in min
Fluid with Oil
No.
[ml]
bore integrity test was conducted prior to the treatment in
5 10 20 30 40 60
order to ensure the entire treatment can be pumped safely. The
Without tubing was tested to the desired maximum treating pressure
3 De- 50:50 5 10 20 30 40 60
emulsifier (13,000 psi) by setting a plug on the landing nipple at the end
With of tubing string. The annulus was also tested to 5,000 psi to
4 De- 50:50 10 20 30 40 60 100 check for any communication. Although the wellhead is rated
emulsifier to 15,000 psi, a 15,000 psi Tree Saver was used to isolate the
wellhead from the high treating pressure and avoid any
Table 6 - VES pad compatibility test results with leakage during the treatment.
formation crude oil During any acidizing treatment, a certain amount of iron is
Acid Separation dissolved. Much of the dissolved iron results from the
Ratio
Sample % with Time in min
No.
Fluid with Oil removal of iron scales present in the pipe. These scales may
[ml] 5 10 20 30 40 60 include magnetite (mill scale), hematite (rust) and iron sulfide.
5
10% PF+90%
50:50 0 0 6 6 10 90 Even in a newly completed well, the principal source of iron
VES will be mill scale16. This mill scale could consume a rather
6 20% PF+80%VES 50:50 0 10 20 20 20 98 large quantity of the treatment acid. Consequently, large
30% PF+70% concentrations of ferric iron compound can be found in the
7 50:50 0 6 30 94 100 100
VES acid. The best approach here is to perform tubing pickling
Note: PF – multifunctional surfactant preflush. prior to the stimulation treatment.
25 bbls 15% HCl was injected into the wellbore and
displaced to 50 ft above the tubing end with 40 bbls 4%
6 IPTC 11347

ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) brine. After soaking for about 15

minutes, the well was opened to flow the spent pickled acid
back to the pit. A strong reddish color was found in the spent
pickled acid (see Fig. 11), which indicated abundant iron
content in the spent pickled acid. One could imagine that if the
first few barrels of acid pumped down the tubular and into the
formation, containing such high concentration of dissolved
iron, a condition could exist where the iron concentration was
so high that significant precipitation would take place causing
severe to complete plugging of the formation.

Fig. 12 - Step rate test plot

Fig. 11 - Spent pickled acid during flowback showing high

iron content
Fig. 13 - On-site step rate test analysis
In order to ensure water quality control, all the mixing
water was filtered down to 1 micron particle size before the
fluid is mixed. Main Treatment:
The entire acid fracturing treatment was pumped successfully
Data Frac: as per designed fluid pumping schedule. 461 bbls VES pad
A step rate test was performed using 170 bbls 4% NH4Cl with fluid, 327 bbls 15% HCl and 289 bbls VES acid diverter were
multifunctional surfactant plus 248 bbls 4% NH4Cl. The rate injected in three stages. The pump rate was varying from 13.5
was stepped up from 1.1 bbl/min up to 13.5 bbl/min and the bbl/min to 31 bbl/min due to different fluid friction. The
last rate was kept for about 10 minutes for the fracture maximum treating pressure was 12,678 psi. The surface ISIP
initiation. Then the rate was stepped down by disconnecting was recorded at 4,760 psi, which corresponding to 9,760 psi at
the pumps one by one. The maximum treating pressure downhole. The treatment plot is shown in Fig. 14.
observed during the step rate test was 12,088 psi. Then the
well was shut in for the pressure decline. The surface and
bottomhole Instantaneous Shut In Pressure (ISIP) were
recorded at 5,005 psi and 10,003 psi respectively. The
treatment plot is shown in Fig. 12. The test was analyzed on
location to obtain those parameters to calibrate the design
model.

A excel based program was built to analyze the step rate

test on site in real time and also to help determine the rate per
steps on location. The bottomhole pressure was calculated
from wellhead pressure based on the friction correlation
developed from other field operations. The analysis plot is
shown in Fig. 13. The estimated fracture pressure was 10,200
psi, which gave the fracture gradient of 0.885 psi/ft. The
fracture extension rate and pressure were determined at 5.1 Fig. 14 - Main acid fracturing treatment plot
bbl/min and 10,640 psi respectively.
IPTC 11347
Post-treatment Evaluation
Data Frac Analysis:
After the injectivity test, all the data points were plotted in
Fig. 15 and the step rate test was re-analyzed. The results are
very close to the previous on-site analysis, which gives
fracture pressure of 10,208 psi (see Fig. 15).
Fig. 15 - Step rate test analysis with all data points
The short step down test was also analyzed as below in
Fig. 16. It was found that the fracture actually closed during
the step down since the simulated curve trend cannot match
the actual trend, and they are separated out at about 5 bbl/min,
which indicates the fracture started to close once the rate was
dropped down to 5 bbl/min. It also confirms the fracture
extension rate (5.1 bpm) that was determined from the above
step rate test.
After the step rate injection test, a 78-minute pressure
decline was recorded, and post-closure analysis technique was
used to verify some formation parameters (e.g. fracture
pressure, reservoir pressure and formation transmissibility)
and identify those non-ideal behaviors (e.g. natural fissures,
pressure dependent leakoff).
Fig. 16 - Step down test analysis
7
Post-closure analysis is derived from the conventional well
test and Carslaw and Jaegar’s heat transfer theory (For heat
transfer and reservoir transient behavior, temperature and
pressure are analogous). Initial development by Gu et al. was
based on the “impulse” assumption that applies to a relatively
short or injection period compared to the falloff period17. The
analysis was limited to the reservoir pseudo-radial flow to
obtain kh/u with a method equivalent to Horner analysis. Later
on, the application was extended by Ken Nolte18, 19, and the
same results can be obtained by analyzing the reservoir pseudo
linear flow that occurs right after the fracture closure and
before transition to reservoir pseudo radial flow through a type
curve match. This offers a significant improvement for the
application because the require time period to reach pseudo-
radial flow is much longer and increases with the square of
fracture length created during the injection, particularly for the
tight formations. Unlike the preclosure analysis method
invented by Mayerholfer20,21, it is independent on fracture
geometry and Young’s Modulus that are normally ill-defined
in the preclosure analysis. Therefore the results are proven to
be as accurate as that obtained from well test analysis.
The time function defined for reservoir pseudo-linear flow
in post-closure analysis is a function of both time and closure
time, and therefore closure time can be extracted from actual
time and pressure derivatives19. This algorithm uses post shut-
in data to extract the closure time from the reservoir's transient
behavior after the fracture closes. As shown in Fig. 17, the
unit slope line represents the “current” time that is also the
horizontal axis. When the processed data begin a “data-trail”
starting on this slope and the subsequent trail forms a
horizontal line, the intercept of the first horizontal line with
the vertical axis is an indication of the closure time. However,
as shown in Fig. 17, the extracted closure times all fall on the
unit slope line (actual time). This indicates that only matrix
flow occurs after shut down. In other words, the fracture has
been closed during the step down period, which verifies the
previous step down test analysis. Furthermore, since the
predicted closure time points are not approaching the storage
line (blue line on Fig. 17); it indicates that there is no natural
fissure behavior in the formation.
Fig. 17 - Predicted closure time from post-closure pressure
analysis
8 IPTC 11347

The pressure falloff was analyzed and shown in Fig. 18.
The estimated effective permeability is 9.9 md, considering
the viscosity of oil at reservoir temperature to be about 0.55 cp
and net pay of 95 ft. The reservoir pressure is estimated to be
8,356 psi. The results were found to be very close to that
obtained from pre-acid fracturing pressure buildup analysis.
and tested in May 2007. The results were found to be more
encouraging. The well is able to produce 7700 BOPD at the
wellhead pressure of 1940 psi. Multiple rate tests after the
treatment confirmed a post-fracturing PI of 3.8 STB/day/psi.
This is more than three times higher than the prefracturing PI
(1.1 STB/day/psi) as shown in Fig. 22.

Table 5 - Production test results

Test Pwh Oil Rate WC GOR Choke
Remarks
No. (psi) (BOPD) ( %) (scf/bbl) Size(in)
1 1900 2045 0 966 24
2 1780 2798 0 883 28
After Acid Fracturing
3 3712 3749 1.0 966 24
4 3100 4293 1.0 865 28
5 264 4879 1.5 936 32
6 2257 4936 1.5 948 36
7 1892 5096 1.5 1006 40
8 1705 5353 0.5 1043 48 Stable > 12 hrs
9 1700 5171 0 1164 40 2 months later

Fig. 18 - Pressure falloff analysis for reservoir parameter

determination

Production Performance & Nodal Analysis:

The well was opened to flow after shut in for two hours. All
the spent acid was flowed back within one day, and the
production was tested in the subsequent days. The test results
are summarized in Table 5. The oil production rate was
doubled at the same wellhead pressure, and post-fracturing PI
is about 2.0 STB/day/psi. It was found that the equivalent skin
after the acid fracturing would be around -5.6 in order to
match with the actual test results (see Fig. 19). Fig. 19 - Nodal analysis comparing pre and post-acid
fracturing production results
Post-fracturing Pressure Buildup Analysis:
A pressure buildup was conducted after the well flowed for
about two months. The analysis is shown in Fig. 20.
Compared to the prefracturing pressure buildup analysis, a
clear fracture linear flow is observed. It indicates a 105 ft
etched fracture with conductivity of 19600 md-ft. Both
fracture half-length and conductivity are significantly higher
than the expectation.
Most importantly, the well is able to produce 5171 BOPD
at bottomhole flowing pressure of 6600 psi after acid
fracturing treatment, which is significantly higher than the
AOP.

Results on the Second Well

The acid fracturing design was made for the second well with Fig. 20 – Post-acid fracturing pressure buildup analysis
the updated reservoir and fracture model based on the showing clear linear flow
evaluation of the first well treatment. The same process was
then carried on for the subsequent wells to seek for continuous
improvement (see Fig. 21)10. The second well was executed
IPTC 11347
Fig. 21 – Optimization process for continuous
improvement
Fig. 22 – Nodal analysis comparing pre and post-acid
fracturing production results
Conclusions
The followings can be concluded from this work:
1. This paper presents the process of acid fracturing design,
execution and evaluation that lead to the successful
implementation of acid fracturing treatment.
2. The formation tends to produces oil with high aspheltene
content when the flowing bottomhole pressure is drawn
below the AOP.
3. Acid fracturing was evaluated and found to enhance the
productivity of Marrat wells and to mitigate the
aspheltene deposition issue in the reservoir by allowing
the wells to produce above the AOP.
4. The fluid systems used in the treatment are discussed in
details including the application of polymer-free
viscoelastic surfactant based fluids.
5. Surveillance program was implemented to monitor and
evaluate the acid treatment.
9
6. The field results show significant improvement on post-
fracturing production and flowing pressure.
7. A post-fracture pressure buildup test indicated a fracture
linear flow with a fracture half-length of 105 ft, high
conductivity of 19600 md-ft and a skin value of -5.
Findings and recommendations from this study will help
management make prudent decisions on an optimized future
reservoir management and depletion strategy for this
challenging carbonate reservoir. This work shows a successful
case study of an acid fracture treatment under various well and
reservoir challenges.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank FDSEK Management for their
support throughout Marrat team activities, particularly Hashim
Hashim, and Jamal Al-Humoud.
Nomenclature
k = formation permeability, L2, md
h = formation thickness, L, ft
Pwf = flowing bottomhole pressure, m/Lt2, psi
Pwh = flowing wellhead pressure, m/Lt2, psi
PI = productivity index, L4t/m, STB/day/psi
Qo = oil production rate, L3/t, BOPD
Δp = pressure drop, m/Lt2, psi
Pr = reservoir pressure, m/Lt2, psi
Pc = fracture closure pressure, m/Lt2, psi
Pext = fracture extension pressure, m/Lt2, psi
FG = fracture pressure gradient, m/L2t2, psi/ft
WC = water cut, L3/L3, %
GOR = gas oil ratio, L3/L3, scf/bbl
μ = viscosity, m/Lt, cp
Xf = fracture half-length, L, ft
kfwf = fracture conductivity, L3, md-ft
s = total skin, dimensionless
BHP = bottomhole pressure, m/Lt2, psi
DTC = compressional wave slowness, t/L, μs/ft
DTS = shear wave slowness, t/L, μs/ft
References
1. Brown, K.E. and Lea, J.F.: “Nodal Systems Analysis of Oil and
Gas Wells,” JPT (Oct. 1985) 1751.
2. Mach, J., Proano, E., and Brown, K.E.: “A Nodal Approach for
Applying Systems Analysis to the Flowing and Artificial Lift
Oil or Gas Well,” paper SPE 8025 available at SPE, Richardson,
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