Summary
With the increased demand for energy and the declining conventional
hydrocarbons worldwide, energy companies are turning to unconventional
resources such as shale gas. With more than 2, 000 Tcf of gas in place
identified in just 5 shale gas plays in the United States, shale-gas formations
are now the number one targets for exploration drilling. Furthermore, there are
still many more major shale-gas plays and basins waiting to be explored,
evaluated, and developed. Because of the extremely low permeability of most
shale formations, it is essential to select the appropriate completion
techniques for shale-gas reservoirs. There are very few papers in the petroleum
literature that provide a logical method to select completion techniques for
given shale-gas-reservoir conditions. There are papers discussing successful
completion techniques that seem to work for a specific shale. We have used many
of these SPE papers to help define "best practices" in completing shale-gas
reservoirs. We then developed logic to determine the best practice in
completing shale-gas reservoirs as a function of reservoir conditions. In this
paper, we will specifically cover the logic we have developed for choosing
completion techniques in shale-gas reservoirs.
First, we performed a literature review on the five basins as well as on all
shale-gas plays in the US to determine the best practices in shale-gas
completion techniques in fluctuating price environments and identify key
geologic parameters that affect overall well performance. From our literature
review, we identified seven pertinent geologic parameters that influence
shale-gas completion practices. Next, we identified different completion trends
in the industry for different geologic settings. Subsequently, we generated an
economic model and performed sensitivity analysis to determine optimal
completions for each gas-shale basin. On the basis of these economic models, we
developed decision flow charts to select completion techniques. Finally, we
programmed the flow chart, and we call this program Shale Gas Advisor. This
program can be used to determine optimum completion best practices not only for
the five gas-shale basins discussed, but also for gas-shale plays that have
similar geologic attributes. We validated the program with published case
histories in the SPE literature.
© 2012. Society of Petroleum Engineers
View full textPDF
(
7,546 KB
)
History
- Original manuscript received:
10 February 2011
- Meeting paper published:
19 September 2010
- Revised manuscript received:
5 November 2011
- Manuscript approved:
10 November 2011
- Published online:
9 March 2012
- Version of record:
19 March 2012
View Cart
