A Study of Completion Effectiveness in the Williston Basin.

M. L. Panjaitan¹, B. B. Cherian¹, D. Mata¹, J. Krishnamurthy¹, and R. Lewis^2
1SPE, Schlumberger
²SPE, Petrohunt

The evolution in oilfield technology to enable the drilling of longer horizontal wells and increased stimulation effectiveness via isolation has resulted in significant productivity gains. The challenges associated with data gathering, increased well count and understanding connectivity of the recently recognized additional reservoir (Three Forks) has generated concerns regarding the development strategy in the Williston Basin. In order to understand a development strategy it is crucial to characterize fracture properties and reservoir properties. A single well model is developed to capture current well performance to understand the impact of the range of fracture geometries and spacing on production performance. Modeling results and fracture pressure data are also presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of fracture initiation techniques, isolation techniques and number of clusters on fracture geometry generation. The paper presents results utilizing single well modeling techniques (using fracture history matching, production history matching and forecasting) to understand and differentiate reservoir quality, reservoir connectivity and completion effectiveness with the aim of understanding the direction in which completion changes must evolve.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90152©2012 AAPG Southwest Section Meeting, Fort Worth, Texas, 19-22 May 2012