Well Stimulation Pawan Tripathi

Case study of
Hydraulic fracturing
Operation by using
Cross-linked Gel.
Presented by
Pawan Kumar Tripathi
Roll No- 22MPE03
M.Tech. 1st year
Pandit Deendayal Energy University
What is Hydraulic Fracturing-:
• Hydraulic fracturing is a well-stimulation technique used commonly in low-permeability
rocks like tight sandstone, shale, and some coal beds to increase oil r gas flow to a well
from petroleum-bearing rock formations.
• In the fracturing process, cracks in and below the Earth's surface are opened and widened by in-
jecting water, chemicals, and sand at high pressure.
• A form of hydraulic fracturing is also used in low permeability sediments and other tight subsurface
formations to increase the efficiency of soil vapor extraction and other technologies used in remediat-
ing contaminated sites.
Stages of Hydraulic fracturing
A typical HF job includes three basic stages
(1) fracture initiation, (2) fracture propagation, (3) flow-back.
Different type of formation and their suitable fluids
Shale – Slick water

Sandstone – Gel ( guar gum) and cross linked gel.
Optimized Hydrualic Fracturing for
the Gandhar Field
• Gandhar is one of ONGC’s major brownfields,
• Discovered in 1983 and located in Gujarat.
• The Field produces approximately 30,000 bopd and is on de-
cline.
• . More than 560 wells have been drilled in the field to target
13 major sands
• . 238 oil wells, 67 gas wells, 122 water injectors and 18 gas in-
jectors. field has produced 24.41 Mmt of oil and 8.48BCM
gas.
Important aspects of case study
• A joint team from ONGC and Schlumberger carried out a rigorous process of candidate selection,
fracture design, and implementation of fit-for-purpose technologies.
• 10 candidate wells were selected and the target zone was the GS-3A reservoir.
• 10-15ft above the GS-3A was a water bearing sand.
• The GS-3A reservoir is primarily found in the southern part of the Gandhar field. The GS-3A reservoir
is characterized as sandstone with shale lamina and is typically 30-45 ft thick
• Most of the candidate wells were primarily in an area of the reservoir that had experienced poor re-
covery primarily because of poor permeability.
• For Fracture containment Schlumberger’s Sonic Scanner tool provided rock mechanical stress data
that was used to design the fracture to be contained within the zone of interest and not break into
the water bearing sand above.
• It also provided the maximum stress direction to determine the preferred orientation plane for per-
forating. Oriented perforating assisted in achieving lower fracture breakdown pressures
Candidate selection
Wells with poor production indicative of low Productivity Index (PI)
Wellbore Integrity, well history should not show signs of poor casing from prior workover history.
The well prior production history showed water cuts less than 40%.
Wells had sufficient separation from water injector wells and were far from the assumed injection front
Cement bond log had to show good bond in the shales bounding the GS-3A sand.
The GS-3B water zone had to be at least 10ft above the target GS-3A zone.
10 candidate wells were selected based on these criteria.
It was estimated that the southern part of GS-3A had a permeability range of 3-10md.
Nodal analysis, analytical production models for fractured wells and Net Present Value (Figure 2) anal-
ysis showed that a 150 ft (50m) fracture half length would yield an optimum production rates.
Nodal analysis (Figure 3) was used to determine the typical bottom hole flowing pressure of 1500 psi.
Since wells are generally spaced 500 m apart and the field is on water flood a contstant pressure
boundary was assumed at 250m from the well
Hydraulic fracturing Job designing
1. Sonic Scanner for Fracture Containment
. It was therefore extremely important that the fracture be contained in the GS-3A and not be al-
lowed to propagate into the water bearing GS-3B.
The Sonic Scanner advanced acoustic logging tool along with GYRO was used for 4 out of the 10
wells to determine the stress contrast between the sand and the shale as well as the direction of
maximum stress for oriented perforating.
2 Oriented Perforating for Fracture Initiation
Early attempts to hydraulically fracture in the GS-3A had been unsuccessful. No breakdown or injec-
tivity could be achieved even at surface pressures as high as 9700 psi at 0.5 bpm rates.
It was believed that this stress contrast would have resulted in tortuosity if the perforations were
not aligned in the direction of maximum stress this factor along with the possibility of perforation
plugging could have resulted in the inability to achieve breakdown.
Oriented perforating with using deep penetrating HMX charges and GYRO services for orientation
were used in this operation to help perforate in the direction of maximum principal stress. The max-
imum stress direction was obtained by the Sonic Scanner data and GYRO described earlier.
3 Fracturing Fluids for High Temperatures
The GS-3A reservoir is at a depth of about 3000m and has a temperature of about 320 degF.
Such temperatures pose unique challenges in fracture fluid stability.
High temperature delayed polymer based cross-linked fluid was used for this purpose
High strength proppant from CarboProp was also selected based on the insitu stress and the
expected flowing bottomhole pressure over a period of time.
It was determined that a fluid design based on 2% KCL would not have any adverse affects on
the formation.
4 High Pressure Operations
The Gandhar wells have Christmas trees with a rating of 5000 psi which were inadequate for the
high pressure operations. A tree saver (well head isolation tool) was utilized so as to enable
pumping pressures at the surface of upto 15000 psi.
Schlumberger’s permanent 10K QL packer was deployed in all 10 wells.
During the job, surface pressures as high as 12,500 psi at 20 bpm were encountered.
Execution
From the beginning, this project involved Schlumberger and
ONGC Ankleshwar asset to work closely in candidate selection,
design, execution and evaluation.
Four workover rigs were deployed to pull out the existing

completions in the 10 wells.
Wireline then carried out USIT and Sonic Scanner runs with
GYRO tools one after the other on 4 wells.
Slickline lowered the bottomhole memory gauge and the

Tree saver was installed to prepare for DataFRAC*.
When a batch of first 6 wells was ready, the fracturing equip-

ment was mobilized.
The first well attempted was GS-407, where hydraulic break-

down issues were encountered again during the DataFRAC*.
Several attempts were made to break down the formation
without much success

Based on prior experience in this field, a slovent system containing Xylene and Toluene
followed by mud acid treatment was carried out to dissolve any organic deposits that
may be plugging the perforations and then breakdown the perforations.
A slight drop in pressure was observed when the solvent was at the perforations and a
significant drop in pressure was observed when acid hit the perforations indicating suc-
cessful breakdown of perforations (Figure 12).
The solvent treatment and mud acid treatments were carried out on 7 other wells.
The two other wells that had reasonable production were not treated with solvent or mud
acid. There were however no issues with breaking down the formation and carry out the
fracture treatment..

Results and Evaluation
The injection and fall-off data was also analyzed using conventional methods of interpreting injectvity
data.
During the injection period, pressure derivative at early times reflects the mobility of oil ahead of water
front and for the fall-off period, the late time behaviour shows the mobility of oil ahead of front.
In our particular case the mobility is that of the oil ahead of the front
Expected production rates were now calculated post-fracture based on these parameters. It was estimated
that all wells were underperforming post fracture.

It is suspected that emulsions are causing the post fracture production impairment.
A trial treatment comprising a toluene and mud acid recipe was pumped in well 120 about 25 days after
the well was put on production, there was an incremental gain in production but still not at the expected
rate
THANK YOU

Well Stimulation Pawan Tripathi

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Case study of

Shale – Slick water

• 10-15ft above the GS-3A was a water bearing sand.

10 candidate wells were selected based on these criteria.

2 Oriented Perforating for Fracture Initiation

4 High Pressure Operations

Schlumberger’s permanent 10K QL packer was deployed in all 10 wells.

Four workover rigs were deployed to pull out the existing

Slickline lowered the bottomhole memory gauge and the

When a batch of first 6 wells was ready, the fracturing equip-

The first well attempted was GS-407, where hydraulic break-

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