Description
Presented by SPE International Production and Operations Advisory Committee
Typical North American shale wells are characterized by long horizontals and multiple stages of hydraulic fracturing. In most cases, the completions and production is left unmonitored. This requires the completion and reservoir engineers to assume that the fracs are being placed and are productive as designed, without any confirmation. In few select cases, the number of fractures has been determined with pressure diagnostics, radioactive tracers, or permanent fiber optic monitoring.
This presentation will discuss an additional method which uses Distributed Temperature (DTS) with an intervention. This new method takes advantages of the fact that the cooling from a hydraulic fracture remains in the reservoir for long periods of time (months). This allows enough time for plugs and/or seats to be drilled and production of the well. After or during these operations, the fiber is conveyed by coil tubing or another intervention service and can record the cooling event created by the injection. This method can be combined with existing production logging technology which can interpret a flow profile from the well. In some instances, DTS data alone can give a reasonable quantification of production of well. As result, DTS data delivers a unique opportunity in unconventional wells because both completion and production diagnostics results from a single intervention.