Abstract
In most US unconventional resources development, operators usually first drill the parent wells to hold their leases, and then infill wells are drilled. A challenge raised from this process is the well-to-well interference or frac-hits. Fractures in infill wells have a tendency to propagate toward the depleted region induced by the pressure sink of the parent well, resulting in asymmetric fracture growth in infill wells and frac-hit with the parent well. One of the available mitigation methods is to inject water into the parent well to re-pressurize the depleted region. Though several papers have released positive results from their numerical studies, both negative and positive responses are reported from filed applications. This paper focused on identifying the mechanism and key factors controlling the effectiveness of the subsequent parent well water injection. A coupling reservoir geomechanical model was built to evaluate the pressure and stress change caused by the parent well production and subsequent parent well water injection. The reservoir and geomechanical models are prepared based on a dataset from Eagle Ford Shale. At desired time steps, pressure distribution from reservoir simulation is used to calculate the corresponding stress status.
In this numerical simulation study, both reservoir properties and operating conditions are considered. Considering the production loss during the parent well injection, the maximum injection time is set to be 1 month. The magnitude and orientation of horizontal principal stresses within and around the depleted region are used as a criterion to evaluate the effectiveness of subsequent parent well injection. A general observation is that between two adjacent fracture clusters, 3 regions could be identified whose behaviors are significantly different during production and injection. The subsequent water injection could only restore the pressure and stress in region 1, which is within 10 ft to the fractures. Region 2 is severely depleted but the injection of 1 month generates no improvement in this region due to the low matrix permeability. Region 3 might exist, where oil is not produced, but Shmin reduces and this reduction could not be restored through injection of 1 month. If the injection generates a relatively uniform pressure distribution, then SHmax angle change could be reduced to 0. We also observed that: (1) for our case, an injection pressure equal to the initial reservoir pressure is recommended. Using low injection pressure, Shmin is found out to be lowest in fractures, which may make infill well fractures tend to propagate into and hit the parent well fractures. However, if injection pressure is increased to larger than the initial reservoir pressure and smaller than the minimum horizontal stress, the improvement is insignificant; (2) Comparison between uniform and non-uniform hydraulic fracture geometries shows that hydraulic fracture geometry mainly affects the depletion region far away from the wellbore. i.e. along the long fracture tips. After injection, in the case with long uniform fractures, the Shmin value in long fracture tips is still lowest. (3) An SRV with high permeability significantly extends the depletion region. If the permeability is not large enough i.e. 0.01 mD, after injection of 1 month, the restored Shmin is about 1000 psi lower than the base case without SRV. (4) Using low bottomhole pressure in production, restored pressure and stress are about 500 psi lower than the base case; and due to the large pressure contrast between region 1 and region 2, the SHmax angle change could not be reduced. (5) In a reservoir with normal pressure, as the pressure change is not large, it is easier for the subsequent injection to take effect.
This paper provides significant insights into how to design a successful subsequent water injection process in a parent well, mitigate the negative effects of frac-hits, and maximize production of both parent and infill wells.
