Abstract: An Evaluation Of the UP-Ford Fracture Stimulation Program, Long Beach Unit, Wilmington Field

MONIZ, MICHAEL, THUMS Long Beach Company, Long Beach, CA

This evaluation details the rate, reserve and economic performance of current fracture stimulated completions relative to the conventional open-hole completion utilized historically in the UP-Ford Zone of the Long Beach Unit.

The developed portion of the UP-Ford Zone is comprised of thin bedded, very fine to coarse grained, clay-rich turbidite sandstones. Individual bed thickness ranges from several inches to several feet. Reservoir quality is highly variable with permeability ranging from tens of millidarcies to several hundred millidarcies. Detailed correlations between wells suggest the UP-Ford sands are laterally continuous.

Completion practices and target sands have evolved since the first wells were completed over 30 years ago. From 1965 through the 1980s, most UP-Ford wells were non-gravel-packed open-hole completions of the prolific AX and/or AU sands. By the middle 1980s, the completion targets progressed to the thinner bedded flow units but the dominant completion type remained unchanged. Selective cased-hole completions were adopted in the early 1990s and by the mid-1990s the cased-hole completions were being enhanced with multiple fracture stimulation treatments. Additionally, many older wells have had fracture stimulated pay added to the existing completion or have been recompleted up-hole with new fracture stimulated pay.

Experience has shown that wells drilled into the UP-Ford interval, which have been cased and fracture stimulated, produce initially at a much higher rate than conventional open hole completions, but the cost is high and the incremental recovery benefit may not yet be optimized.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90911©2000 AAPG Pacific Section and Western Region Society of Petroleum Engineers, Long Beach, California