American Oil and Gas Reporter - November 2015 - 105

duction was 23 percent higher than B2
(7 percent normalized uplift from engineered staging). The normalized PI also
was higher than well B2, with a shallower
PI decline. No interference was detected
between the wells.
A potential explanation for the relatively small observed uplift could be the
cluster distribution difference between
engineered and regular staging, which
impacted only a small amount of clusters.
The limited-entry design already helped
offset stress differences within the regular
stages, diminishing the value added from
engineered staging.
While it is possible that the production
uplift could be attributed to geological
variations or other external factors, the
extra cost of designing the engineered
staging based on logs from a nearby pilot
hole was small enough to make this
design exercise worth the effort for future
wells, at least until a statistically meaningful dataset proves otherwise.
A tractor-conveyed array production
logging tool (PLT) was run in well A1 to
try to improve the operator's understanding
of the main hydrocarbon contribution
drivers. The tool measures several flow
characteristics, including density, temperature, pressure, fluid conductivity and
fluid velocity. Some parameters were
measured on the well cross-section with
multiple measurement devices (spinners)
distributed in a circular pattern to account
for phase segregation and slip velocity
PASCAL LIM is a completions engineer
at BG Group in Houston. He worked
four years at EXCO Resources as a "secondee" in completions, reservoir, and
production engineering roles in the Marcellus and Haynesville shale plays. Prior
to that, Lim had served at BG Group as a
graduate petroleum engineer. Previously,
he had been a commissioning engineer
at Saipem. Lim holds an M.S. in mechanical engineering from Ecole centrale de
Lille and an M.S. in petroleum engineering
from Heriot-Watt University.

PETER GODDARD is a geologist with
BG Group, currently working in Trinidad
and Tobago as team leader for exploration. Prior to that, he had spent four
years as a secondee in the EXCO Resources Appalachia joint venture, working on the Marcellus Shale. In a 10year career at BG, Goddard also has
worked in the Central North Sea and
offshore Tunisia. He holds an M.S. in
earth sciences from the University of
Bristol and an M.S. in petroleum geoscience from Imperial College, London.

in the lateral. The interpretation of the
data yields gas and water rates at each
entry point (clusters) in the lateral.
The main result of the PLT run was
confirming that all clusters were contributing, with certain zones producing
more than others. It is uncertain whether
this high cluster efficiency also was obtained in a regular staging configuration.
The wellbore has very high gas holdup,
so loading in the lateral is not an issue.
Moreover, the production distribution
does not favor either the heel or toe.
Cross-plots were made to determine
the impact of specific geologic variables
on stage and cluster contributions. However, it was very difficult to identify
correlations with any geological parameters. It is thought that the investigation
radius of the open-hole tools (only a
few feet) was too small to accurately
describe the entire fractured reservoir
area.
One potential explanation of the lack
of a consistent correlation between nearwellbore closure stress within a stage
and gas rate per cluster is that hydraulic
fracturing is only one aspect of productivity. Reservoir quality is important also,
but it was relatively unknown since only
the near-wellbore properties were calculated, and they might not be representative
of the rest of the formation at the fracture.
Additional work is being done to find a
nonlinear relationship between production
and geologic parameters.
r
JOHN SINK is a geologist at EXCO
Resources in Dallas. Before joining the
company in 2011, he served five years
as a reservoir geophysicist at Schlumberger. He began his career as a polarized light "microscopist" at Fibertec
IHS. He holds a B.A. in communications
and a B.S. in geological science from
Michigan State University, and an M.S.
in geological science from Wright State
University.
IBRAHIM ABOU-SAYED is president
and owner of i-Stimulation Solutions
Inc. in Sugar Land, Tx., and a consultant
to EXCO Resources. Before establishing
i-Stimulation Solutions in 2007, he
worked for 22 years as an adviser to
ExxonMobil, and as an engineering
consultant to Mobil E&P Technical
Company in the stimulation and production enhancement area. Abou-Sayed
holds an M.S. and a Ph.D. in engineering
mechanics from Brown University.

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American Oil and Gas Reporter - November 2015

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