Layer | Fill | Outline |
---|
Map layers
Theme | Visible | Selectable | Appearance | Zoom Range (now: 0) |
---|
Fill | Stroke |
---|---|
Collaborating Authors
Salah, Mohamed
Abstract Most of the Egypt's Western Desert plays are characterized as tight reservoirs. In early development stages, only the high permeability layers called "conventional reservoirs" were produced. The unconventional, challenging layers were not considered economical because of the high stimulation costs. As the high-permeability layers became more mature and showed a sharp decline in production, the tight layers/zones were targeted by operators to unlock the enormous amount of hydrocarbons and to achieve the economical production targets from these marginal fields. The government has launched a number of studies to evaluate, explore, and appraise several prospects of unconventional reservoirs. Gas shales were characterized within the Khatatba source rock in the Shoushan basin and a tight carbonate reservoir was observed in the Abu Gharadig basin. A total of six vertical and two horizontal exploratory wells were drilled and completed via multistage hydraulic fracturing in the appraisal stage of the program for collecting the required data. The pilot data were used to evaluate the reservoir quality, to demonstrate the availability of reserves, to identify the optimal technology for maximizing productivity, and to set foundations for the future development of these plays. This paper presents the previous results of field trials and shares some lessons related to the recent appraising and development activities of unconventional plays in Egypt. The properties of these unconventional resources have been reviewed to unlock their potential. In addition, the best strategies of field development were highlighted to capitalize the promising potential from these reservoirs through an advanced workflow. This study sheds light on the recent unconventional gas appraisal and development activities. The results indicate that Egypt holds substantial resources of unconventional gas that can play a key role in positively changing the country's production. Introduction Developing unconventional resources and unlocking the enormous amounts of hydrocarbons are gaining more interest. Achieving economical production targets is of key importance, particularly because of the increase in Egypt's domestic demand for energy and production's annual decline from the more mature, high permeability layers. Also, the enormous success in North America's production brought unconventional resources to the forefront of discussion on the future of energy. Five vertical and two horizontal exploratory wells have been drilled and completed via multistage hydraulic fracturing in the Apollonia tight carbonate. Another vertical exploratory well has been drilled and completed in the Middle Jurassic Khatatba source rock with one-stage hydraulic fracturing. Then the well has been flowed back. The goal of this appraisal program was to collect the required data and to set the foundation for the future development of these plays. Laboratory core testing was conducted to understand the complex mineralogy, reservoir characterization, and variable rock fabric. Geological and geochemical studies were conducted to identify the lithostratigraphic section of the Khatatba source rock and to measure the total organic content (TOC), the Rock Eval pyrolosis, and the thermal maturity of hydrocarbon and gas content. Geomechanical rock properties, derived from the advanced petrophysical analysis of newly acquired high-definition triple combo, full-wave sonic logs and core samples testing, were used to determine the rock elastic properties (the Young's modulus and the Poisson's ratio), brittleness and fracturability, and the natural fractures existence (Salah et al., 2016a). Understanding of all of these characteristics helped in reducing uncertainty during hydraulic fracturing operations. Moreover, a stimulation model, which integrated petrophysical and geomechanical data, was built. This paper reviews the findings of the recent activities within unconventional plays in Egypt and summarizes the formation properties, reservoir characteristics, and the flow back analysis of these wells. The lessons learned can form a basis for the subsequent development of various unconventional plays in Egypt.
- Africa > Middle East > Egypt > Western Desert (1.00)
- North America > United States > Texas > Harris County > Houston (0.28)
- Phanerozoic > Mesozoic > Jurassic (1.00)
- Phanerozoic > Cenozoic > Paleogene > Eocene (0.70)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline > Geomechanics (1.00)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline > Geochemistry (1.00)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline > Economic Geology > Petroleum Geology (0.92)
- Geology > Rock Type > Sedimentary Rock > Clastic Rock > Mudrock > Shale (0.72)
- Geophysics > Borehole Geophysics (1.00)
- Geophysics > Seismic Surveying (0.93)
- Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)
- Government > Regional Government > North America Government > United States Government (0.46)
Abstract With the increase of Egypt's domestic demand for energy, economical production from unconventional reservoirs is a great challenge to maintain production's annual decline. This has spurred interest in the development of unconventional resources, such as tight reservoirs and shale gas, particularly because of the enormous success in North America that brought unconventional resources to the forefront of the discussion on the future of energy. The country has launched studies to evaluate, explore and appraise several prospects for unconventional gas in Shoushan-Matrouh and Abu Gharadig basins. Exploratory pilot data wells were drilled and completed in the appraisal program for collecting the required data to evaluate the reservoirs qualities, demonstrate the availability of reserves, and identify optimal technology to maximize productivity and set the foundation for future development of these unconventional plays. Logs, core testing, and analysis service data were performed on or collected from these wells. Laboratory testing was conducted to understand the complex mineralogy and variable rock fabric. Geomechanical rock properties derived from advanced petrophysical analysis of newly acquired high-definition triple-combo full-wave sonic logs and core samples were combined to develop sophisticated models. These understandings helped reduce uncertainty and the lessons learned from this work and presented in this paper helped define completion and stimulation technologies for horizontal wells. This objective of this paper is to review of the results and share lessons learned related to the recent appraising activities of unconventional plays in Egypt's western desert, evaluate these unconventional resources to unlock their potential. In addition, this paper present the challenges of development, highlight the best strategies required for field development to capitalize on the promising potential of these reservoirs through an integrated advanced workflow. The results from this study will shed light on the results of recent unconventional gas exploration and appraisal activities, which indicate that the western desert of Egypt holds substantial resources of unconventional gas. This unconventional gas can help to change the slope of production rates in the country positively and set the foundation for future development of these plays.
- Phanerozoic > Mesozoic > Jurassic (1.00)
- Phanerozoic > Cenozoic > Paleogene > Eocene (0.70)
- Phanerozoic > Mesozoic > Cretaceous > Upper Cretaceous (0.68)
- Geology > Rock Type > Sedimentary Rock > Clastic Rock > Mudrock > Shale (1.00)
- Geology > Petroleum Play Type > Unconventional Play (1.00)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline > Stratigraphy (1.00)
- (3 more...)
- Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)
- Government > Regional Government > North America Government > United States Government (0.30)
Abstract Recent advancements in technologies pertaining to the drilling of horizontal well and multistage hydraulic fracturing have made it possible to get significant hydrocarbon production even from extremely low permeability formations. Evaluation of the economics is becoming increasingly essential before committing to any big investment. In this scenario, production forecasting plays an important role by not only evaluating the economic feasibility of the project, but also helping in the selection of the most optimal development strategy (Shivam et al. 2017). This paper presents an integrated workflow that has been applied in one of unconventional gas bearing formation which is a common reservoir in Egypt’s Western Desert. It does form a reasonable reservoir size and spread over several hundred sq.kms. It is characterized as a low permeability carbonate (0.2 mD) in soft chalk reservoir. Many vertical wells were drilled and completed in the appraisal program for collecting the required data to evaluate reservoir performance before the completion of horizontals, but economical target production rates could not be achieved. To help optimize field development strategy and further increase production, a full field development plan was initiated by drilling horizontal wells with multistage fracturing stimulation. Horizontal pilot wells were drilled and completed along and perpendicular the minimum horizontal in-situ stress direction to enable both transverse and longitudinal fracture propagation patterns for the best completion option. The objective of this paper is to present an integrated approach to evaluate an unconventional resource, improve the completion efficiency, improving the future fracture design and understand the productivity enhancement specifically in the Western Desert of Egypt, through a detailed analysis of production data and pressure transient analysis. The conclusions from this study will help in evaluating the behavior of multistage fractured horizontal with different fracture azimuth direction and generate production forecast for different development scenarios. The stimulated rock volume estimation will help in planning the future fracture design to increase well EUR. The proposed workflow and lessons learned formed the basis for subsequent development of various unconventional plays in Egypt.
- Africa > Middle East > Egypt (1.00)
- North America > United States (0.95)
- Asia (0.94)
- Europe (0.68)
- North America > United States > Texas > Haynesville Shale Formation (0.99)
- North America > United States > Louisiana > Haynesville Shale Formation (0.99)
- North America > United States > Arkansas > Haynesville Shale Formation (0.99)
- Well Drilling > Drilling Operations > Directional drilling (1.00)
- Well Completion > Hydraulic Fracturing > Multistage fracturing (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Reservoir Fluid Dynamics > Flow in porous media (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Formation Evaluation & Management (1.00)
ABSTRACT The Apollonia formation is a tight gas carbonate reservoir characterized as a low permeability soft chalk (Young's modulus ~ 1 MM psi) with medium porosity and low quality natural fractures. The ability to achieve economical production rates and efficiently develop the Apollonia with those characteristics has become increasingly challenging. To further increase production from the field, a development plan was initiated employing drilling of horizontal wells with multistage fracturing stimulation. An integrated and detailed workflow of laboratory core testing was established to gain an in-depth understanding of this reservoir's rock mechanics behavior and to help optimize the hydraulic fracturing and completion designs. Particularly, elastic properties and principal in-situ stresses were acquired to provide the following:Static and dynamic mechanical properties information for correlating well-log data. Calibration to the mechanical earth models constructed from sonic-derived mechanical properties to help provide realistic deformation parameters for hydraulic fracturing design purposes. Strength information for developing a failure locus for the material. The evaluation program of mechanical properties testing was conducted on selected core samples and integrated logs from two offset vertical wells. The laboratory testing program consisted of the following:Indirect tensile strength testing (Brazilian method) performed at room temperature. Unconfined compression (UCS) testing. Single stage triaxial compression testing with concurrent ultrasonic velocity measurements. All laboratory data, including procedures, tabulated results, stress-strain plots, computerized tomography scan images, and post-test sample images are provided for analysis and visualization of the failure mode. By understanding the reservoir geomechanics behavior and the mechanical parameters that have a critical impact on the hydraulic fracturing propagation, improved decision making in terms of fracturing design and optimization was made. Software was used to model the propagation of hydraulic fractures based on the integrated reservoir mechanical properties analysis. Different scenarios of perforation clusters were run to model propagation of multiple horizontal fractures and predict the changes in stress anisotropy in the neighborhood of the fractures. Results revealed that an increased number of perforation clusters attributed to increased stress interference from the outer fractures, causing reduced inner fracture half-length and resulting in longitudinal fracture propagation rather than transverse fractures, thus reducing the stimulated reservoir volume. The results of this study improve the understanding of the Apollonia reservoir mechanical properties and help provide valuable insight into optimization of multistage hydraulic fracturing design in horizontal wellbores, thus establishing the base for subsequent reservoir development.
- North America > United States (1.00)
- Europe (0.89)
- Africa > Middle East > Egypt (0.82)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline > Geomechanics (1.00)
- Geology > Mineral > Silicate > Phyllosilicate (0.48)
Abstract Egypt's Western Desert reservoirs are characterized to be tight clastic reservoir. In the early development stages only layers with high permeability were produced while tight formation was not considered economic due to application of conventional completion strategy resulting in very low production results. With the decline of Egypt's hydrocarbon production and increase in domestic demand of energy, economically production from these tight reservoirs is a great challenge to maintain production's annual decline. The prospective of these tight producing zones were discovered at a depth below 14,000 feet where the stress is extremely high (1.1 psi/ft) and the reservoir permeability conditions are low with range of 0.2 mD; being necessary in all cases to fracture stimulate each horizon to define the fluid and evaluate productivity. The extreme stress condition and high fracturing treating pressure, risk of premature screen out are one of the main challenges to perform fracture stimulations on these formations which exceeded the working capability of the available equipment in addition; it required significant amount of horsepower on location. Initially, the conventional fracturing treatment was conservatively designed in terms of treatment rate, polymer loading of fracturing fluid and proppant concentration to manage both risk and treatment proppant placement. However, this conservative approach impaired proppant-pack conductivity and the effectiveness of the fracture half-length However, premature screen-outs severely disrupted stimulation operations, leading to costly nonproductive time and deferred production. The poor results using these conventional fracturing techniques during initial exploration and development, the wells were deemed uneconomical. The recent advances in channel fracturing technology; enabled operators to unlock the potential of their toughest reservoirs to economically produce and unlock the enormous amount of hydrocarbons retained in the rock, prolong life of mature fields and achieve production targets. With the application of this technique, helps alleviate the risks of screenout and mitigates the proppant bridging buildup, as the proppant is added in pulses along with dissolvable fibers. These proppant pillars are suspended and held in place by fibers during the treatment. Once pumping is stopped, the fracture closes on the proppant pillars and the fibers degrades under effect of formation temperature. These pillars hold stable channels along the entire geometry of the fracture that provide open pathway for hydrocarbons to flow in near-infinite conductivity. Additionally, 40% less proppant was used and reducing pump rates, which lowered horsepower requirements by 30%. Results indicate that the channel fracturing technique has significantly impacted wells' performance and achieved the desired objectives over conventional fracturing methodologies. Positive features that were observed such as reduced net pressure increase estimates, elimination of near-wellbore screen-outs.
- Europe (1.00)
- Asia (1.00)
- North America > United States (0.47)
- Africa > Middle East > Egypt (0.45)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline > Geomechanics (1.00)
- Geology > Rock Type > Sedimentary Rock > Clastic Rock (0.48)
- Asia > Middle East > Kuwait > Jahra Governorate > Arabian Basin > Widyan Basin > North Kuwait Jurassic (NKJ) Fields > Marrat Formation > Upper Marrat Formation (0.98)
- Asia > Middle East > Kuwait > Jahra Governorate > Arabian Basin > Widyan Basin > North Kuwait Jurassic (NKJ) Fields > Marrat Formation > Sargelu Formation (0.98)
- Africa > Middle East > Egypt > Western Desert > Greater Western Dester Basin > Faghur Basin > Safa Formation (0.98)
- (8 more...)
Abstract During the past few years, Khalda Petroleum company (KPC) are looking forward to significant steps toward improving the economic performance of hydrocarbon producing wells in the low-permeability, heterogeneous reservoirs through the application of high impact technologies used in unconventional wells for drilling, perforating, zonal isolation, fracturing and flowback that unquestionably helped improve well performance in an efficient and economical manner. Recently, the well architecture was changed from vertical completion profile to horizontal multistage fracturing, to increase the reservoir contact. This paper reviews and discuss the well completion and stimulation methods being implemented in horizontal wells fracture stimulation in Western Desert of Egypt allowing for multistages to be fractured in one continuous pumping operation including plug-n-perforation, cemented sliding sleeves with degradable isolation drop balls and Coiled tubing deployed abrasive jetting perforating on coiled tubing with annular path pumping of the fracturing treatment and sand plug isolation. This paper provides a comprehensive evaluation and comparison of these different techniques including an overview of these completion types, detailed engineering, post-stimulation flowback/clean out, discuss the benefits and considerations, and comparison of results from the multistage stimulation methods that were applied to improve the efficiency of multistage fracturing operations. Case histories are provided to support the obtained benefits and advantages, and lessons learnt are discussed along with recommendations and what to avoid in field operations. The case history will discourse the completion strategy, operational procedures, adeptness of the isolation and time frame used. On the other hand, operational setbacks encountered during the execution of the multistage fracturing treatment will also be encompassed in the paper; to allow for future improvement; and recommendations for future field operations to achieve faster fracturing and quicker production.
- North America > United States > Texas (1.00)
- Asia (0.93)
- North America > Canada (0.69)
- Europe (0.68)
- North America > United States > Texas > West Gulf Coast Tertiary Basin > Eagle Ford Shale Formation (0.99)
- North America > United States > Texas > Sabinas - Rio Grande Basin > Eagle Ford Shale Formation (0.99)
- North America > United States > Texas > Maverick Basin > Eagle Ford Shale Formation (0.99)
- (4 more...)
Multistage Horizontal Hydraulic Fracture Optimization Through an Integrated Design and Workflow in Apollonia Tight Chalk, Egypt from the Laboratory to the Field
Salah, Mohamed (Khalda Petroleum Company) | Orr, Doug (Khalda Petroleum Company) | Meguid, Ahmed Abdel (Halliburton) | Crane, Brady (Halliburton) | Squires, Scott (Halliburton)
Abstract The key challenge in unconventional gas plays covering vast geographical areas is locating the regions in the reservoir with the highest combination of reservoir and completions quality. This allows operators to evaluate not only the richness of their resource but also the ability of the reservoir to produce hydrocarbons in commercial quantities. This paper discusses hydraulic fracturing designs targeting tight gas in horizontal wells drilled in the Apollonia tight chalk formation in the Abu-Gharadig basin, Western Desert, Egypt through the integration of laboratory, geological, petrophysical, geomechanical, fracture simulation, and diagnostic fracture injection test (DFIT) analysis. Laboratory testing, which included scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), was conducted to determine mineralogy and potential damage mechanisms. Fracturing fluid chemistry was tested and optimized using core plugs from representative reservoir rock (fracture conductivity, fracturing fluid compatibility, surfactant type, fracture regain permeability, and scale tendency). Geomechanical rock properties derived from advanced petrophysical analysis of newly acquired high-definition triple-combo full-wave sonic logs and core samples were combined with geological parameters and potential treating schedules to develop sophisticated fracture simulation models. These models were then refined with in-situ reservoir data obtained from DFIT analyses to derive the final fracturing treatment design. The stimulation model was built using a three-dimensional (3D) geological model with multidisciplinary inputs, including formation properties, in-situ stresses, natural fractures, and completion parameters (i.e., well orientation, stage and perforation cluster spacing, fluid volume, viscosity, and proppant volume, size, and ramping schedule). The integration of all available data resulted in an optimized fracture design that helped reduce both cost and formation damage, thus improving flowback, long-term productivity, and profitability from this tight formation.
- North America > United States > Texas (0.94)
- Africa > Middle East > Egypt > Western Desert (0.24)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline > Geomechanics (1.00)
- Geology > Mineral > Silicate > Phyllosilicate (0.49)
- Geophysics > Borehole Geophysics (1.00)
- Geophysics > Seismic Surveying (0.93)
- North America > United States > Texas > West Gulf Coast Tertiary Basin > Eagle Ford Shale Formation (0.99)
- North America > United States > Texas > Sabinas - Rio Grande Basin > Eagle Ford Shale Formation (0.99)
- North America > United States > Texas > Maverick Basin > Eagle Ford Shale Formation (0.99)
- North America > United States > Texas > Fort Worth Basin > Barnett Shale Formation (0.99)
Abstract Hydraulic fracturing is frequently used to create enhanced wellbore connectivity to enable tight reservoirs to produce hydrocarbon. Many factors can be considered as risks to the success of fracturing operations. One of the risks arises in reservoirs that are close to a water-bearing zone. The risk of fracture growth into the water zone limits the stimulation options and eliminates the chances of using hydraulic fracturing treatment to improve well productivity, thereby restricting the well's future production and often resulting in lost recoverable reserves. In the Western Desert of Egypt, two wells were to be fracture stimulated with a risk of propagating into a nearby water zone. The productive pay of low-permeability reservoirs is separated from underlying water zones by a weak or no stress barrier. The proximity of the water zone to the hydrocarbon-producing zone varied from 20 to 40 ft, and containing the fracture height in such well conditions to prevent the fracture propagating into the underlying water zone becomes a serious challenge. This can jeopardize the post treatment well productivity. It therefore becomes necessary to prevent fracture height propagation from growing into the adjacent water zone. This case study presents a novel hydraulic fracturing technique, applied for the first time in Egypt's Western Desert that controls fracture height growth in the absence of in-situ stress contrasts. This technique places an artificial proppant barrier below the pay zone, close to the water-oil contact, creating high resistance to fluid movement and restricting pressure transmission, thus arresting unbridled vertical height growth of fractures. These barriers are created prior to themain fracture treatment by pumping heavy proppant slurry at fracturing rates carried in a fracturing fluid loaded with high breaker concentrations. The high breaker concentration breaks the gel fast, thus allowing the proppant to settle quickly to the bottom of the created fracture. The results from the application of this newly applied dual fracturing treatment technique have been overwhelming, with a 12-fold increase in production with no increase in water production. The application of this technique resulted in an increase in the net pressure at the end of main fracturing treatment indicating fracture containment within the zones of interest. The minifracture analysis, stress profile calculation, fracture geometry characterization, and no water breakthrough after the treatment support the fracturing design.
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline > Geomechanics (1.00)
- Geology > Rock Type > Sedimentary Rock > Clastic Rock (0.48)
- Africa > Middle East > Egypt > Western Desert > Khalda Concession > Lower Safa Formation (0.99)
- Africa > Middle East > Egypt > Western Desert > Greater Western Dester Basin > Abu Gharadig Basin > AEB Formation (0.99)
Abstract Most of Egypt's Western Desert reservoirs are characterized to have low permeability and heterogeneous, poor rock quality. In the early development stages only layers with high permeability were produced, while the low-permeability, low-porosity layers were not considered economic. As these high-permeability layers became more mature and declined in production, tight layers became the operator's alternative choice to unlock the enormous amounts of hydrocarbons still present in these rocks and achieve economical production targets from these marginal fields. Hydraulic fracturing technology enabled us to unlock the potential of these challenging layers that were previously considered uneconomical. Hydraulic fracturing is now a common practice, even pushing extremes such as deeper, high-temperature and high-pressure wells in the Western Desert. The incremental production gains from these challenging layers have encouraged operators to invest. Currently, hydraulic fracturing is routinely conducted for all new production and injection wells and is reconsidered for the old wells. Completion practices, candidate selection criteria, perforation and design strategies, and workflows were revised to address these new challenging conditions and reservoir complexities with hydraulic fracturing technology. For example, vertical completions were replaced by horizontal multistage fracturing completions to increase the reservoir contact. State-of-the-art software was used to simplify decisions on fracture initiation points across heterogeneous reservoirs. Different technologies, alternative to conventional perforating, were introduced to enhance the proppant placement, post-fracturing production, and operational efficiency. This paper provides a review of hydraulic fracturing in Egypt's Western Desert. The hydraulic fracturing technique has been used to develop mature fields and challenging formations of Egypt since the early 1990s. More than 1,000 treatments targeting low- to medium- permeability rocks were pumped in Khalda Ridge. Correlation between mechanical properties, reservoir properties, essential fracturing design, completions, and operational parameters were established over time to help other operators that intend to apply hydraulic fracturing to their assets. Case histories are also provided, demonstrating different fracturing techniques for extreme conditions. In this paper we detail the progress related to completion practices and technologies to revive the mature fields of Egypt.
- Geology > Mineral (1.00)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline > Geomechanics (1.00)
- Geology > Rock Type > Sedimentary Rock > Clastic Rock (0.69)
- Geophysics > Seismic Surveying > Passive Seismic Surveying > Microseismic Surveying (1.00)
- Geophysics > Borehole Geophysics (1.00)
- South America > Argentina > Patagonia > Neuquén > Neuquen Basin > Vaca Muerta Shale Formation (0.99)
- Africa > Middle East > Egypt > Western Desert > Khalda Concession > Lower Safa Formation (0.99)
- Africa > Middle East > Egypt > Western Desert > Greater Western Dester Basin > Matruh Basin (0.99)
- (13 more...)
Abstract As proppant particles exit fractures during production, the fracture conductivity diminishes with time as the fracture width decreases. This choking effect causes the production of the well to decline, and the high velocity of proppant particles also damages downhole or surface equipment. As a result, proppant flowback causes significant costs resulting from loss of production and equipment damage. Wells experiencing these problems require remediation, ranging from routine wellbore cleanouts to costly artificial lift equipment repairs. A novel, water-based consolidation system has been successfully developed to overcome fluid compatibility, placement, and safety issues during handling and operations, which most current conventional solvent-based resins encounter during field applications. In this system, solvent-based chemicals are replaced with aqueous brines as carriers in the treatment fluid. As a result, aqueous-based resins have high flashpoints, similar to those of water. Additionally, aqueous-based systems are essentially noncombustible and contain no solvent-based resins. They can be foamed, so the operator can bullhead the fluid directly into the wellbore to treat long intervals without zonal isolation packers. The new aqueous-based resins were field tested in Western Desert, Egypt for the first time in 2009. They were developed to provide consolidation for previously placed proppant near the wellbore without damaging the permeability of the proppant pack. Shrouk field wells were hydraulically fractured, and the initial production was approximately 1,000 BOPD. Eventually, the wells began producing proppant, and within three days, proppant flowback destroyed the production pump and eliminated the benefits associated with good wells. Cleaning the wellbore did not prevent the recurrence of proppant flowback, and the cleanup process was repeated several times to maintain well production. Results from field trials showed that this aqueous-based consolidation (ABC) system successfully treated proppant in near-wellbore (NWB) regions, locking them in place without damaging production flow paths. The consolidation treatment transformed the loosely packed proppant in the fractures near the wellbore into cohesive, consolidated packs. In these field tests, intervals in excess of 40 ft were treated effectively with a bullhead squeeze, using consolidation treatment fluids that were foamed to a quality of 75% to aid in diverting treatment fluids and extending treatment volume. This case history presents results of the application of the ABC system to control proppant flowback and to enhance fracture conductivity in Egypt's Western Desert oil fields. This paper presents the results of field applications and discusses the challenges, treatment procedures, and recommendations for applying this newly developed resin. The excellent proppant flowback control reduced remedial work by 95%, and proppant flowback issues were resolved, resulting in significant cost savings.
- Africa > Middle East > Egypt > Western Desert (0.30)
- North America > United States > Texas > Dawson County (0.24)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline (0.93)
- Geology > Rock Type > Sedimentary Rock > Clastic Rock (0.46)
- Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)
- Materials > Chemicals > Commodity Chemicals > Petrochemicals (0.76)