Maximizing Profits in a Tight Gas Volcanic Reservoir with a SIMOPS Multistage Fracturing Campaign

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents success story of a SIMOPS multistage fracturing campaign peformed in Raageshwari Deep Gas field of India to produce from tight retrograde gas producing reservoir. Usually hydraulic fracturing in India is performed on a few selected candidate wells of a field with treatment frequencies ranging anywhere between 1-20 hydraulic fracturing treatments per year for a field. This is a well centric approach where individual services such as Eline perforations, CTU clean out, Well Testing etc operate in silos. The focus in this well centric approach is on optimizing each individual operation. On the other hand SIMOPS multistage fracturing campaign adopts an integrated approach and various services operate simultaneously on adjacent wells of same well pad. The focus in SIMOPS is on optimizing overall operations and can be considered a field centric approach. Accordingly average well completions cost and time is lower for integrated operations approach as compared to single well centric approach. CAPEX on the other hand is higher for SIMOPS approach since the number of wells being completed is higher and the scale of operations is much bigger than that of a single well approach. SIMOPS approach is more suited for tight reservoirs where economic production cannot be achieved without hydraulic fracturing. Raageshwari is a laminated tight retrograde gas producing reservoir and wells in this field do not produce economically without hydraulic fracturing (Gupta 2015). Each hydraulic fracturing treatment targeted multiple clusters of perforations and multiple such hydraulic fracturing treatments were required on each well to achieve full pay zone coverage of gross thickness ~ 700m on each well. The number of clusters completed in each treatment varied from 2-6 and number of treatments performed on a well varied from 5-10. High fracturing treatment frequency and a need to reduce average well completions cost paved way for the first SIMOPS multistage fracturing campaign in India.