The boom in organic shale plays has revealed the critical need to size hydraulic-facture treatments correctly to achieve commercial success. The right balance must be found between the cost of fracturing and the additional production achieved by increasing the formation-to-wellbore contact area. The complete paper examines a range of completion scenarios to evaluate the relationship between hydraulic-fracture design, production, and well profitability by use of numerical simulations to guide completion of horizontal wells in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta Shale.
Introduction
The Vaca Muerta Shale is the source rock of most of the producing formations in the Neuquén Basin, with high potential as a standalone reservoir. The first well aiming at testing production from the play was drilled and completed in 2010, and, at the end of 2016, the production from the formation involved more than 600 wells.
