The understanding of parent-/child-well effects plays a key role in defining the development strategy of shale plays. For this purpose, a commercial, fully coupled hydraulic fracturing, reservoir, and geomechanics simulator was used to model the area of interest. Results showed a strong dependence of child-well production losses on infill timing, well spacing, and completion design. Child-well estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) can range from 5 to 50% lower than parent wells within the ranges of well spacing, infill timing, and completion designs tested.
Location and Field Diagnostics
The area of study is La Calera, an unconventional gas condensate field with an area close to 230 km2. The studied site consists of a pad of three wells drilled and completed in 2020 next to another pad of three infill wells completed in 2022. All wells in each pad navigate different productive targets within the Vaca Muerta.
A set of interwell-interference tests was conducted in these wells at different points in time, providing insights on the initial well communication and its development.
The initial interference test was conducted in 2020 among the parent-pad wells during their initial flowback period, with Well P3 serving as the observation well with a downhole gauge installed.
