SPE 168673 / URTeC 1558757

Impact of Completion Design on Unconventional Horizontal Well

Performance
R. Yalavarthi*, R. Jayakumar, C. Nyaaba and R. Rai: Weatherford
Copyright 2013, Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC)

This paper was prepared for presentation at the Unconventional Resources Technology Conference held in Denver, Colorado, USA, 12-14 August 2013.

The URTeC Technical Program Committee accepted this presentation on the basis of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). The contents of this paper
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Abstract

Unconventional resource plays involve the development of some unusual reservoirs such as shale with effective
permeability in the nano-Darcy range. Reservoir development of these resource plays requires drilling horizontal
well with multi-stage hydraulic fracturing. Completion design that incorporates geological constraints is often the
critical step as it dictates the drainage volume and well spacing to decide how the play will be developed in the
future. There are numerous variables that dictate the choice of potential completion design and its impact on well
performance. Understanding these key variables that control the outcome of massive hydraulic fracturing in a
horizontal well is the need of the hour. This paper explores how readily available fracture pump data, pressure and
rate data can be utilized to estimate and understand the unknowns involved in the completion and the reservoir
parameters.

In this paper, we compared wide range of datasets from multiple shale plays in North America to analyze the effect
of well spacing, wellbore geometry, fracture spacing, fracture proppant to liquid ratio, and completion inefficiency
on well performance. The results show how the changes in these parameters can be correlated to understand the
overall potential of the well. These results can be used to build a knowledge base which can guide us towards best
field development planning by reducing the amount of experimentation and thus help in cost saving.

Introduction

Completion parameters can have a significant impact on horizontal well performance in unconventional plays.
Understanding completion effectiveness of these wells is always a challenge. Effective drilling and completing well
requires understanding of the reservoir and rock quality. Reservoir quality parameters define hydrocarbon
accumulation and flow properties. Rock quality defines the mechanical properties that dictate how rocks fracture.
Reservoir quality is estimated from permeability (k), original gas in place (OGIP), porosity (ϕ) and water saturation
(Sw). Rock mechanical properties can be estimated from rock mineralogy, Young’s moduli (Y) and Poisson’s ratio
(PR). Jayakumar et al. (2013) studied the effect of completion parameters such as amount of proppant pumped
during stimulation, pumping rate, lateral landing and wellbore placement on well performance. We studied other
completion parameters such as well spacing, wellbore geometry, fracture spacing, fracture proppant to fluid ratio
and other completion inefficiencies.

Researchers have tried to understand the impact reservoir and rock quality on the overall well performance. Agarwal
et al. (2012) has addressed some of the widely used completion techniques in five different shale plays from North
America. Shebl et al. (2012) showed the effect of various rock and completion properties on vertical fracture growth
and well performance. Shebl et al. (2013) talked about the importance of lateral placement in a shale reservoir based
on the reservoir and rock properties of a nearby vertical well. Hashmy et al. (2012) identified sweet spots for
stimulation based on the reservoir and rock properties of the horizontal well. Bartuska et al. (2012) showed how
proppant and fluid tracers can be useful to answer several completion design questions. Xie et al. (2012), Bai (2012)
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and Boulis et al. (2012 and 2013) have also discussed about certain completion parameters such as fracture spacing,
well spacing and their impact in shale reservoirs.

Completion Parameters

Various completion parameters will have an impact on the well performance. Completion design is unique to each
play as it needs to account for reservoir and down-hole conditions, surface equipment constraints and economic
realities of the play. This paper presents some of the critical completion parameters that are believed to have an
impact on the well performance. The observations are based on an analysis of over 750 shale gas wells across
multiple plays from North America. In the following sections we will discuss in detail about some of the key
completion characteristics such as wellbore geometry, fracture spacing, proppant to fluid ratio, well spacing and
completion inefficiency on well performance.

Wellbore Geometry

The term “horizontal well” is a misnomer. In most cases these wells are not completely horizontal in their lateral
section. They can have varying wellbore trajectories along its lateral as discussed in detail by Jackson et al. (2011).
In their work, they classified typical horizontal wells into five major groups such as original, complex, undulating,
toe-up and toe-down and discussed the impact of liquid loading for these configurations. For simplicity in this work,
we have reduced the classification of wellbore trajectories based on the lateral section into toe-up, toe-down and
undulating as shown in Figure 1. The original trajectory as defined by Jackson et al. (2011), assumes the lateral
section to be relatively at the same elevation whereas the difference between complex and undulating profiles is the
magnitude of peak and troughs along the lateral. Very few wells had their lateral sections at the same elevation due
to dip in structures and the difficulty in distinguishing between complex and undulating profiles made this
classification highly subjective.

While analyzing wellbore geometry, well may have more than one trajectory profile in different segments of the
well. In this work, we classified the trajectories in these three groups based on a relative predominance of a
distinguishing characteristic. We acknowledge that these classifications have our own bias to them.

Figure 1: Sample wellbore schematics – Toe-up, toe-down and undulating

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Based on Miller et al. (2010) formulations, shale specific linear transient productivity index (Jlt, psi.D/Mscf) is used
as a metric to gauge the well performance across the wells. This productivity index accounts for the contributions
within the stimulated rock volume (SRV) and external rock volume (XRV). Jlt is used as a metric for comparison,
because this formulation accounts for various uncertainties that could be attributed to the production. Detailed
descriptions of various uncertainties have been discussed by Jayakumar and Rai (2012). Figure 2 shows the
cumulative distribution plot for the three major wellbore trajectory classifications. As observed from the plot, the
productivity index does not vary significantly with changes in the wellbore trajectory for shale gas wells. The P50
value of productivity index for all the three wellbore profiles varies from 10-13 psi.D/Mscf. All the well data
analyzed had relatively minor amount of water production post clean-up. The fact that most of the wells are early in
their producing life with the wellbore velocities above critical loading rates, no significant impact of trajectory was
observed in this data. As the producing rates decline below the critical loading rate the impact of wellbore trajectory
may become more prominent. As stated earlier, these results are based on shale gas wells. These observations should
not be extended to liquid rich shale plays.

Though the productivity index variation was not observed significantly it will be interesting to look at the overall
water recovery of the pumped fluids in the wellbore. Figure 3 shows the overall water recovery for the toe-up and
toe-down wells that were analyzed. Undulating wells were not included since the water recovery information was
not available for a large data set to create the cumulative distribution plot.

Figure 2: Productivity Index – Toe-up, Toe-down and Undulating wellbores

Figure 3: Water Recovery – Toe-up and Toe-down wellbores

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As observed from the plot (Figure 3) the overall water recovery was low for both toe up and toe down shale gas
wells. We could not conclusively determine if tow-up or tow-down wells were better performers based on water
recovery as this data was not reliably available post clean-up. Based on the analyzed data, we can observe toe-up has
marginally better water recovery than the toe-down wells. This analysis needs to be extended to a larger dataset of
wells with significant water production post clean-up to conclude with any affirmation on which wellbore
configuration aids water recovery.

Completion Efficiency

Though the productivity and water recovery remained almost the same for the different wellbore profiles, it will be
interesting to observe another important factor called the completion resistance (Rcomp). This is a measure of
completion pressure loss that could occur due to factors such as liquid hold-up in the wellbore, poor fracture
connectivity, poor fracture conductivity etc. Jackson and Rai (2012) have explained in detail about various types of
completion resistance and their impact on the overall well performance. Figure 4 shows the completion resistance
for the three wellbore profiles studied in this paper. As observed in the plot, the undulating wellbore has
significantly high Rcomp values ranging from 0.1 – 3.75 psi/Mscf/d. On the contrary, toe-up was marginally better
compared with the toe-down wellbore profiles. To be precise, Rcomp value of 1 psi/Mscf/d will translate to a
completion pressure loss of 1,000 psi for every 1 MMscf/d of gas rate. For example a well with Rcomp of 3.75 in the
undulating scenario will result in 3,750 psi for every 1 MMscf/d of gas rate. Consider this in a reservoir with a total
drawdown pressure of 5,000 psi of a well producing 1 MMscf/d, will have 75% of the pressure loss occurring due to
completion.

Figure 4: Completion Resistance – Toe-up, Toe-down and undulating wellbores

To better understand how an undulating wellbore could cause a severe completion loss; let us imagine a wellbore as
shown in Figure 5. As observed in the figure an undulating wellbore can have “sumps” which can potentially hold
the liquids during production causing a back pressure on reservoir. This is further aggravated as the gas velocity
drops below critical velocity and the well is unable to unload the liquids accumulated in these “sumps”. Considering
no other factor contributed to completion loss, the total Rcomp is the sum of individual pressure losses due to liquid
hold-up in each of the “sumps”. It is highly recommended to minimize the undulations along the wellbore to
overcome this high completion resistance that may be caused by liquid hold-up.
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Figure 5: Undulating wellbore showing liquid hold-up along the wellbore

An alternate way is to look at completion efficiency across various shale plays as shown in Figure 6. As observed in
the plot, P50 Rcomp values are similar for around 0.1-0.2 psi/Mscf/D for Marcellus, Woodford and Fayetteville. On the
contrary, Haynesville wells typically had higher completion resistance indicating additional pressure drop. P 50 value
for Haynesville is twice as high as the other shale gas plays. This plot indicated that different completion strategy
needs to be adopted for different shale plays to minimize the overall completion ineffectiveness. For additional
reading, Jackson and Rai (2012) have discussed in detail about various effects of completion resistance on well
performance.

Figure 6: CDF plot showing completion resistance across four major US shale gas plays

Fracture Spacing

Fracture spacing is another critical factor in completion design. Determining the effective fracture spacing is critical
in making a well economical. The goal is placing fracture clusters along the lateral so as to avoid over stimulating or
to under stimulating the reservoir. This requires placing the right number of fractures along a lateral depending on
the reservoir quality. Cheng (2010) studied the impact of perforation clusters and cluster spacing on the well
URTeC 1558757 6

performance. Operators are experimenting between geometrically placing fractures (stages) equidistant vs. using
variations of reservoir and rock quality along the lateral to decide fracture spacing i.e., unequal fracture spacing.
Placing clusters along the lateral for unequal spacing can only be performed if the logs along the lateral are
available. In this section we present the impact of equal and unequal fracture spacing on well performance. The gas
in place, brittleness and lateral location are based on the pilot-hole logs and is assumed to be constant along the
lateral.

For the equidistant fracture spacing scenario a uniform spacing of 110 ft was used. The unequal spacing scenario
had a minimum fracture spacing of 57 ft and maximum fracture spacing of 250 ft. The overall perforated lateral
length and the total fracture area was constant between the two scenarios. These scenarios were evaluated for two
values of permeability: 10 nD and 500 nD.

Figure 7 shows the cumulative gas production comparison between all the evaluated scenarios. The results show that
at higher permeability such as 500 nD, the equal and unequal spacing did not have a significant impact on the
estimated ultimate recovery (EUR). The equal spacing scenario was marginally better by one percent. This can have
a small impact on the net present value (NPV). On the contrary, in low permeability scenario i.e. 10 nD, the EUR for
equidistant fracture spacing is 10% higher than unequal fracture spacing. This may have an impact on the NPV.

Figure 7: Cumulative comparison of equal and unequal fracture spacing

The difference in EUR was more pronounced in the low permeability rock because of the fracture spacing variation
between the cases. In an equally spaced scenario the average spacing was 110 ft between the clusters. On the other
hand in the unequally spaced scenario the fractures were as close as 57 ft. The fractures that are placed closer will
start interfering with each other resulting in an earlier end of the internal linear transient flow. Depending on the
number of fractures that are either closely spaced or farther apart, the transition time to internal depletion flow will
be impacted. Figure 8 shows the log-log diagnostic plot for the 10 nD scenario. As seen in the plot, the unequal
fracturing spacing case starts the transition from internal linear transient flow to internal depletion flow at around
200 days whereas the equal fracture spacing scenario shows the same happening between 400-500 days. Since the
scenario with equal fracture spacing stays in linear transient flow for a longer duration, it has relatively less decline
in production compared to unequal fracture spacing for the same early time performance. The observations of this
section should not be extended if the reservoir and rock quality is varying along the lateral. Each case will have to be
analyzed independently.
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Figure 8: Log-Log diagnostic plot for 10 nD scenario

Proppant/Liquid Ratios

The ratio of proppant to liquid pumped is also believed to impact well productivity. A hydraulic fracture model
incorporating rock geo-mechanical properties and actual fracture treatment data provides the estimate of hydraulic
and propped fracture characteristics. To demonstrate the potential impact of proppant to liquid ratio; sensitivities
were performed ranging from 0.4 pound/gallon (lbm/gal) to 2 pound/gallon. We chose a range of 0.4 to 2 lbm/gal
based on wide range of shale wells that were studied. For this sensitivity, the stress profile, pump rate (100 barrel per
minute) and total fluid pumped (70,000 gallons per stage) were kept constant while the proppant mass (28,000,
56,600, 84,800 & 141,400 pounds per stage) was varied.

Figure 9 shows the conductivity profile across the propped fracture for each of the four different proppant to fluid
ratios. The area shaded in pink represents higher conductivity. As seen in the plot, the estimated total propped
fracture area is indicated as solid rectangle. With increase in proppant to fluid ratio we clearly saw an increase in
fracture dimensions from 0.4 lbm/gal case to 0.8 lbm/gal. When we further increased the proppant concentration to
1.2 and 2 lbm/Gal we saw a reduction in the total fracture dimensions. Fracture area is dependent on total fracture
half-length and fracture height.

We also observe that the conductivity of the higher proppant concentrations is much better than the lower
concentrations although the fracture geometry is smaller, this could be due to proppant packing. The proppant is
unable to be transported deep into the wellbore due to lack of fluid at higher proppant concentrations. Higher
proppant concentrations could also have the risk of wellbore screen-out. On the other hand pumping too little
proppant with a lot of fluid creates a larger hydraulic fracture with a small propped fracture and bad conductivity.
The figure shows very less pink (high conductivity) near the wellbore for 0.4 lbm/gal case. This is not good for the
well either since well performance is based on the propped fracture geometry. 0.8 lbm/gal case had the best proppant
concentration with the biggest fracture dimensions.
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Figure 9: Conductivity profile with varying proppant to fluid ratio

Figure 10 shows the percentage change in fracture area based on the plots above using 0.8 lbm/gal as the base case.
Reducing the proppant to fluid ratio by 60% (2 lbm/gal case) from the baseline of 0.8 lbm/gal results in
approximately 70% reduction in propped fracture area. There was only 30% reduction in the propped fracture-area
with 1.2 lbm/gal case. Decreasing the proppant to fluid ratio as low as 0.4 lbm/gal from the baseline case results in
approximately 60% loss in fracture area. The fracture area reduction can be directly correlated to production
performance as shown by Jayakumar et al. (2013) in the absence of any other completion issues in the well. Hence it
is necessary to weigh out the impact of good conductivity vs. fracture geometry to find the optimal proppant to fluid
ratio for every fracture treatment.

Figure 10: Fracture area reduction with fluid to proppant ratio change
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Well Spacing

Well spacing is a key uncertainty that needs to be understood for overall economic field development. The well
spacing is dictated by fracture spacing, SRV dimensions and order of drilling as shown in Figure 11. Sahai et al.
(2012, 2013) has documented impact of some of these parameters on well spacing.

Figure 11: Various realizations of fracture spacing, SRV dimensions and timing (Ref: Sahai et. al. 2013)

In this section we demonstrate the impact of overstimulation on well spacing. The constrained well was the first well
to be drilled in the section. Two wells were further drilled on either side by limiting the well spacing to 40 acres and
thereby affecting the well performance. The diagnostics plot of inverse productivity index versus superposition time
function (STF) for the example well is shown in Figure 12. The plot shows an initial productivity of 56 Mscf/psi/√D
until an STF of 10 (~200 days). The productivity then reduced to 46 Mscf/psi/√D for the remaining production
history due to the impact of neighboring wells.

Figure 12: Diagnostics Plot for example well

The effect of over-drilling (placing wells too close) on well performance is shown in Figure 13. The red curve is the
30 year EUR for the test well with the 40 acre spacing and the blue curve is for the same well with an unconstrained
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drainage area i.e. no external boundary effects are observed for the duration of the study. It can be seen that, over
drilling reduced the well’s production by over 50%, 4.3 Bscf versus 2.1 Bscf.

Figure 13: EUR comparison between 40 acre and 640 acre spacing

A well spacing study was performed to determine the optimum well spacing for this area. The results are shown in
Figure 14. Based on the maximum incremental net present value (NPV) results show 60 – 80 acres to be the
optimum spacing and hence at current 40 acre spacing, the study section is over-drilled. By performing the well
spacing optimization, we could have drilled fewer wells to drain this section improving the overall NPV. The NPV
for 60 acre spacing is approximately 4 million USD higher than the current 40 acre spacing. This shows that over
drilling has reduced the NPV by more than 15%.

Figure 14: Well spacing optimization

Summary

The paper evaluated key sensitivities such as wellbore geometry, fracture proppant to liquid ratio, well spacing,
fracture spacing and completion inefficiency and their potential impact on the well performance. To sum up, the
following are the key observations:
 Wellbore profile did not have significant impact on the productivity index and water recovery. These two
parameters are influenced predominantly by reservoir characteristics.
 Wellbore profile did show an impact on the completion effectiveness. Undulating wellbores indicated a
higher completion pressure loss compared to toe-up or toe-down wellbores. This observation cannot be
extended to liquid rich shale plays.
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 Different completion strategy needs to be evaluated for various shale plays to optimize completion
efficiency.
 As the reservoir permeability increases, the sensitivity to fracture spacing declines.
 In a lateral with constant reservoir and rock quality for the same well performance i.e. same total fracture
area at a given permeability, equidistant fractures outperformed unequally spaced fractures.
 Estimating the optimal proppant to fluid ratio was critical to well performance. High proppant with low
fluid and vice versa is not recommended.
 Over drilling has a significant impact on the NPV and recovery per well drilled.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Weatherford for permitting this work to be published, and all its employees who
have contributed to this paper.

Nomenclature

k – Reservoir permeability, (106 mD)

ϕ – Porosity, %
CDF – Cumulative Distribution Function
EUR – Estimated Ultimate Recovery
NPV – Net Present Value
OGIP – Original Gas in Place, Bscf
Sw – Water Saturation, %
Y – Young’s Modulus, MM psi
PR – Poisson’s Ratio, no unit
Rcomp – Completion Resistance, psi-D/Mscf
SRV – Stimulated Rock Volume, acre-ft
Jlt – Linear Transient Productivity Index, Mscf/psi/√d
XRV – External Rock Volume, acre-ft

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