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Unconventional resource exploitation has three key technology and application focus areas—increasing implementation of fracture diagnostics, enhancing production and recovery from new well completions as well as existing wells through improved stimulation and restimulation design and execution quality, and developing enhanced oil recovery methods. -
Applications of particular interest are those addressing challenging well-production needs such as reducing or eliminating liquid loading in gas wells; restimulating existing, underperforming wells, including as an alternative to new well drilling and completion; and remediating water blocking and condensate buildup, both of which can severely impair production from g…
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With reduced new unconventional well activity, practices such as frac-hit mitigation—pressurization of parent wells during child-well fracture stimulation—have become increasingly important to reduce parent-well proppant cleanouts as well as to maximize production from both parent and child wells.
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To continue to advance optimization in new-well completions, to cost-effectively restimulate existing wells, and to enhance recovery, will require capacity for laboratory studies and field trial programs and implementation of a range of analytical methodologies.
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With low primary-recovery rates in unconventional reservoirs and the longer-term development prospects for EOR applications on a fieldwide scale, the potential for accelerated completion optimization in new wells and production-enhancement treatments in existing wells is substantial.
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While enhancing oil production from multizone, hydraulically fractured completions in tight reservoirs is not straightforward, recent studies have shown that applications such as gas injection and waterflooding have the potential to create significant improvement in oil recovery.
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Under current conditions, onshore focus has shifted from fast-paced growth of tight hydrocarbon reservoirs to production enhancement from existing (but still profitable) wells, as well as to maximizing productivity from the smaller number of new well completions.
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Estimates of tight-reservoir hydrocarbon reserves continue to vary with uncertainty. What is known with certainty, though, is that current recovery rates are low and the upside is substantial.
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With the industry moving forward with exploration and development in the broader categories of unconventional resources globally, it is of paramount importance to assess and improve the different methods and tools for estimating reserves, to establish their accuracy and credibility.
