Abstract
Infill drilling consists of adding horizontal wells between existing wells to optimize drainage in high-value acreage. New wells are sometimes drilled as close as 250 ft to producing or depleted wells. Fracturing the new wells creates a high risk of fracture-driven interactions (FDI). This paper describes a methodology to characterize well interference on production in unconventional basins and the impact of mitigation technologies.
Data mining, correlations, and statistical tools were developed to extract and analyze a large commercial production database covering major plays in the US. First, cloud-based algorithms were developed to identify and characterize infill wells based on coordinates, well deviations, production dates, and an adjustable radius of interference. Second, monitoring algorithms automatically captured and analyzed abrupt changes in normalized production of infill wells and neighboring wells at the time of infill well stimulation. Finally, the effect on production of both parent and child is immediately displayed on a user-friendly user interface for further visualization and interpretation.
The method was successfully applied to areas experiencing high infill drilling in major basins such as the Williston basin. Results show that production data correlate with historical changes in infill drilling density and fracturing job volumes (proppant and fluid). The production of child wells is then compared to that of their closest parent, which shows some decline as a function of the distance between wells. The systematic workflow also identifies if the basin is prone to positive fracture hits or if there is a significant decrease in the production of existing (parent) wells. The use and impact of diversion technologies as a well interference mitigation method is also studied.
These results give important insights into the effect of field development strategies on well interference and enable recommendations related to well spacing, fracturing designs, and use of fracture geometry control technologies to optimize future well and field development. Production data analysis clearly shows a beneficial impact of both near-wellbore and far-field diversion technologies on production.