stimulation

The technical contributions highlighted this year focus on matrix stimulation of carbonate and unconventional reservoirs.

Of all the technologies that have propelled the unconventional boom in the United States over the past 15 years, plug and perf (P&P) remains the No. 1 method for stimulating multistage wells

This paper aims to develop criteria for identifying situations in which induced fracture complexity and sustained conductivity are or are not required.

The lower tertiary formation found in the pre-salt layers of the Gulf of Mexico has become a proving ground for extending what is possible when completing multistage fracturing in ultradeepwater wells.

Efficient production in many fields requires reservoir stimulation. Some of the challenges with hydraulic fracture stimulation are reservoir-related, such as consistently stimulating all targeted intervals.

Matrix stimulation encompasses pumping processes used to improve the connection between the wellbore and the reservoir. They are effective in a wide range of lithologies and have been successful in most types of completions: cased and openhole, horizontal and vertical, simple and complex, injectors

Horizontal shale wells present the challenge of generating large, high-density fracture networks, reflecting the sub-microdarcy permeability of the formations drilled by these wells.

The elliptical (conical) damage profile associated with horizontal wells is well-known, but review of industry-wide applications by different operators shows no corresponding uniform correlation between the damage profile and actual treatment volumes that have been applied.

Novel multizone stimulation technologies have enabled the development of tight resources that previously could not be developed economically and have enabled optimization of production resources distributed over thick gross intervals.

This past spring, I had the opportunity to review more than 100 SPE paper abstracts as well as numerous full papers from those abstracts. To SPE’s credit, these abstracts all represent high-quality papers, making it difficult to select those to be highlighted for this feature.