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Top, Salvador Ayala, Schlumberger Well
Production Services vice president of
marketing and technology, studies
mapped fracture paths generated by
StimMAP* hydraulic fracture stimulation
diagnostics. Knowledge of the physical
dimensions of the fracture network
ensures effective and efficient opera-
tions. The lower-left figure shows
Mangrove workflow results that identify
the best intervals to complete—
in green—in a horizontal well and the
center diagram demonstrates how
HiWAY technology forms channels in
the fracture network.
One of the keys to successful fracture stimulation is first placing the wellbore in the most
favorable part of the reservoir, where the highest porosity and best permeability exist,
and then focusing the hydraulic fracturing operation on that same part. Although new
technologies such as the HiWAY* flow-channel hydraulic fracturing technique can achieve
considerable savings over conventional techniques, it is clear that the fracturing effort
cannot succeed without knowing where to put the fracture. Fracturing technology has
developed extremely rapidly in oilfield terms—only a decade ago, hydraulic fracturing
still employed a brute force approach to attempt stimulation of long sections of a well
that typically crossed reservoir zones of limited potential. What was lacking were the
necessary modeling and
interpretation techniques
for unconventional
reservoir evaluation and
development.
By applying science,
Schlumberger has
developed an integrated
reservoir modeling
workflow that harnesses
the power of HiWAY
technology to multistage completion equipment that directs the proppant to the most
favorable reservoir zones and monitors the development of the fracture network by
“listening” to the rocks as they open. The workflow, using Mangrove* software running
on the Petrel* E&P workflow platform, also integrates technologies from the
Schlumberger Production Group with Reservoir Characterization Group surface and
downhole seismic measurements, core analysis, and standard wireline logging and
logging-while-drilling data. The result is a three-dimensional reservoir model capable
of predicting the variations of unconventional reservoir quality for determining the best
well locations and the best reservoir zones.
Unconventional Reservoir Workflow
