American Oil and Gas Reporter - February 2017 - 50

SpecialReport: Shale Resource Science

Multiphase Enables 'Minimal Approach'
By Stuart L. Scott
HOUSTON-Pad-based horizontal
drilling techniques have revolutionized
development of onshore unconventional
reservoirs. In shale fields that often require
drilling and completing hundreds of wells
within relatively small geographical areas,
the ability to "batch" drill and stimulate
multiple laterals on a single pad dramatically improves operational efficiencies
and overall cost structures for both constructing horizontal wellbores and completing them with multistage hydraulic
fracturing treatments.
However, the focus on improving efficiency should not stop when wells are
completed and turned to production. By
deploying game-changing advances in
surface production technology, operators
can adopt a "minimal" approach based
on a multiphase production facility (MPF)
to move almost all production equipment
from the individual pad site to a concentrated, centralized location, which provides

a number of cost savings and operational
advantages-particularly given the size
and scale of resource plays.
Prior to the oil price collapse in late
2014, the application of MPFs for padbased unconventional field development
was limited by the intense focus on
drilling and fracturing wells, and on acquiring and holding leases. High initial
production rates hid the impact of longterm production issues and production
facility optimization.
With lower prices and curtailed drilling
activity, operators are looking to underFIGURE 1
Pad Site Multiphase
Production Facility Layout
Wells
Multiport
Valve

Multiphase
Meter
Multiphase
Pipeline
Multiphase
Pump

stand how costs can be reduced and how
pad compression can be utilized to better
maintain production from low-permeability
reservoirs with steep decline rates in their
first few years of production.
Simply put, utilizing an MPF, with
pad-level multiphase pumping and metering, provides a step-level change that
can differentiate a company as a top-tier
performer in several key areas. The strategy
a company employs for its surface production facilities has an enormous impact
on long-term operating expenses, recovery
rates, and relationships with stakeholders
in the local community. Given advances
in technology, the industry can do things
differently now in ways that have a significant impact on full-field development
costs and realize long-term asset value.
Multiphase production has been used
elsewhere in the oil and gas industry to
eliminate flaring/trucking and to reduce
development costs, and has the potential
to provide several other critical advantages-ranging from well testing to gas

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American Oil and Gas Reporter - February 2017

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