Lessons Learned Developing the Eagle Ford Shale

Abstract

Abstract The Eagle Ford shale play located in south Texas is in its infancy in terms of development compared to other shale plays in the USA. The Barnett shale has been commercially productive since the1980s and the Haynesville has been commercially productive since 2005, whereas the Eagle Ford has only been producing since 2009. Thus, there is significant risk involved in drilling a horizontal Eagle Ford well because the reservoir's characteristics change depending on the location, producing gas, gas condensate, and oil. A few operators have successfully made the transition in the last year from vertical to horizontal-wellbore programs in the gas window and there is a need to shorten the learning curve to successfully develop the play. One such method involves the use of wireline logs, such as cased-hole pulsed-neutron logs (PNL), run in the lateral to determine the reservoir characteristics and to aid in tailoring the hydraulic fracture treatment. Following this horizontal well's completion, a review of the mud log, cased-hole PNL, and tracer and production logs in the lateral in conjunction with the stimulation treatment was conducted to determine which zones produced as expected and, more importantly, which zones did not produce as expected. This paper focuses on reviewing all log data pertaining to this well in combination with the completion treatment and production to identify possible relationships between production performance, the reservoir and the completion, and moreover to determine what would be done differently in future wells, in addition to reviewing additional offset well-data.