SPE-181810-MS

Years of Tight Oil Fracturing: What Have We Learned?

Yucai Wang, Jilin Oilfield; Zhonghe P. Wang, IUT Group; Yingan Zhang, Jianguo Xu, and Yongwei Duan, Jilin
Oilfield, PetroChina

Copyright 2016, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Asia Pacific Hydraulic Fracturing Conference held in Beijing, China, 24-26 August 2016.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
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Abstract
Production rapid decline is the major problem for the tight sandstone reservoirs in Jilin oilfield. For the
particular reservoir investigated in this study, production is not only subjected to the reservoir properties,
but also the well completion designs especially fracturing. A comprehensive study has been conducted for
multi-stage fractured horizontal wells. New fracturing improvement strategies are presented in this paper for
future operations in the studied field and also those who may have similar tight sandstone reservoirs to share.
Through the integrated studies of the petrophysical characteristics, geomechanical properties and
fracturing data from the fractured wells of the tight oil reservoirs in Jilin Field, numerous fracturing modeling
scenarios were compared with actual fracturing monitoring data. A fully three dimension finite element
simulation, associated with the analytical result from earlier production data, and the theory of interaction
between fracture clusters, were built in this study. We conducted the inversing design parameters from the
multi-stage hydraulic fracture with some monitoring data to improve the understanding of the reservoir
properties. Additionally, a calibrated geomechanical stress model for a completed well in this field was
built. At the end, the production model was presented. Data was provided to facilitate later comparison
with the actual multi-stage hydraulic fracture production and valuable lessons have learned through those
iteration studies.
With thoroughly trained and well calibrated model, a new fracturing strategy has been developed for
the studied tight oil field. The best NPV can be achieved with the optimal fracture conductivity, fracture
geometry and well performance. But first of all, the most valuable lesson we learned is that, the Effective
Propped Volume (EPV) is the dominating factor for the fractured well performance, instead of the so-
called Stimulated Reservoir Volume (SRV). SRV is a misinterpreted concept yet un-calculable. By adopting
a numerical simulator and a proficient technology, we developed the most suitable design (perforation,
fracture spacing etc.) and the fluid system (slick water, linear gel etc.) for this reservoir so that the optimal
fracture geometry and fracture conductivity can be achieved. Besides that, the fracture geometry and
proppant distribution were simulated. The simulated oil production data from the finite element fracture
and production software is highly matched with the recorded oil production data.
An adaptability evaluation was conducted along with this study. To ensure the relevance and the
authenticity of design, we analyzed the effective factors of treating material from both the laboratory and
2 SPE-181810-MS

the field data in this field. A novel fracturing fluid system was applied. The fluids are more effective and
leave less damage to the formation.

Introduction
There are some debates going on in the horizontal well fracturing (HWF) for tight sandstone reservoir on
what type of fracture are needed or in other words, fracture network is necessary or not in order to achieve
a relatively good production rate initially and a reasonable rate following the rate decline. Can we create
fracture network in the reservoir by using some "special way" (basically great amount of slickwater/fluid
with high pumping rate) of fracturing if the natural fractures were poorly or barely developed by nature?
There are other questions and some confusions or disagreements related to these questions as well among
operators, service companies and academy as well. During preparation of this paper, significant efforts have
been made in providing opinions through our study and analysis on the significant among of data from
Jilin oilfield and existing information out there from different sources at other fields including some shale
reservoirs so that the readers may draw their conclusions on those questions.
Large scale shale formation fracturing started a little over 15 years ago in North America has
revolutionized the shale oil/gas reservoir development since then. This shale revolution started in Barnett
shale gas during 1998 (Ennis, 2014), and since then a lot of publications have been made based on this
breakthrough success on one hand; and on the other hand, people took the Barnett shale gas HWF to other
shale formations not only for shale gas, but also to shale oil like in Bakken. A major breakthrough was
made at EOG's Parshall discovery in 2006 for the shale oil. The facts are that people modified the Barnett
shale HWF model from fracturing fluid, proppant selection, the way of well completion and etc. Different
operators or different service companies modified differently from what has been done in the Barnett shale
during the last 15 years. It is a dynamic field in term of the HWF as people realized that the shale HWF
technology is an "evergreen" one because there are always people trying new things on it for improvement
from one innovation to another.
One of those iconic features describing the Barnett shale fracturing is forming fracture network.
Most people agreed that Barnett shale reservoir forms fracture network through fracturing because the
microseismic data shown a spread out of microseismic event dots even around vertical wells. And it is
fair to say because of the spread out of the microseismic event dots in Barnett shale fracturing, a famous
concept came to form, the mapped fracture geometry (Fisher et al., 2004), and later on was called Stimulated
Reservoir Volume (SRV) by Mayerhofer et al. (2008). The concept of SRV was defined through the
microseismic event cloud, and without a doubt, this concept was mainly based on the fracturing at the
Barnett shale.
Because of shale's unique and very intricate geological, physical and mechanical properties at all scales
(from nano- to macro-scale) compared with sandstones and carbonates, the adjective "unconventional" has
often been applied to their characterization (Slatt et al., 2011). Tight sandstone reservoir on the other hand
has quite a bit difference from shale oil reservoir (also called tight oil in some publications) in different
aspects from geology, reservoir forming, geomechanics, and so on. As we know that not all shale are the
same. For example, Devonian dry gas in eastern Kentucky, it is much better to use foam fracking or liquid
CO2 fracking due to water "sensitive"; Antrim shale, with water saturated (like coals, must first de-water)
it is better to use high PPG gel fracking (short, high kfw fracs); Niobrara shale, completions aimed at
"silty"/"sandy" chalk intervals; Within Shale (i.e., more "normal" fracturing), foam fracking works better
as well (Smith, 2013).
Can some of those concepts and practices of the shale reservoir fracturing in the North America be applied
to tight sandstone oil like Fuyu formation in Jilin oilfield or other similar formation? If so, what should be
modified based on the local reservoir condition and other conditions at the specific location? This paper
presents some of the specific applications and the practices on this.
SPE-181810-MS 3

One thing kept almost the same as what has been done in Barnett shale is using microseismic for
monitoring fracture propagation, and using microseismic event cloud as SRV. We will discuss this concept
of SRV in detail later in this paper.
The tight sandstone reservoir of Fuyu formation in Jilin oilfield has the characteristics of low water
flow energy and complex fluvial sediment of Cretaceous. The estimated recoverable oil in the tight Fuyu
formation reservoir is about 1 billion metric tons in Jilin field. The formations depth of Jilin field ranges
from 1750 to 2500m, and the thickness of a single pay are in the range from 2.5m to 8m and most of pays
have shale or mudrock as interbedding. Tight oil reservoir formation has 5% to 12% porosity and 0.01mD
to 5mD permeability with p50% around 0.6mD. Crude oil viscosity at the reservoir condition is 3 to 4 cp.
The principle horizontal stress differential is between 8.5 to 9 Mpa.
The tight sandstone Fuyu oil reservoir was developed through HWF as early as 1995 using limited entry
at first, but the production for the first horizontal well was less than the normal vertical well in that field.
There was not much progress for tight oil reservoir development in Fuyu reservoir until the year of 2011
when multi-stage, multi-cluster HWF with higher pumping rate and large fluid volume was implemented,
which was called volume fracking or SRV fracking.
The big problem for Fuyu reservoir is the rapid oil production rate decline. The paper presented some
summary of the latest HWF practice and analysis based on the big data, numerical stimulation results and
monitoring results as well. New fracturing improvement strategies are also discussed in this paper.

SRV and Microseismic Event Cloud

The prototype of stimulated reservoir volume (SRV) was first introduced by Fisher et al. (2004) based on
Barnett Shale fracturing data, a hydraulic fracked vertical well with microseismic event cloud spreaded out
widely around the well. That makes people believe there are fracture network in the Barnett shale after
the large scale with high pumping rate fracturing. This SRV concept has been further defined explicitly by
Mayerhofer et al. (2008, 2010) as "the size of the created fracture network approximated as the 3-D volume
(Stimulated Reservoir Volume or SRV) of the microseismic event cloud", which also based on Barnett Shale
fracturing data. It is about shale, and Barnett shale.
The key words "stimulated" and "volume", when those two words come together; it creates power, like
a magnet to metals, attracting too many people in fracturing arena. Many people think intuitively that SRV
is a truly stimulated reservoir volume, and some of them even go further interpreting SRV as a crushed
reservoir volume three dimensionally, which means fracture not only developing into networks, but also
developing horizontally following the reservoir layers. Why could this be possibly happened by so much
misunderstanding for the SRV? Those two words, "stimulated" and "volume" coming together is to be
blamed.
We all know that the so-called SRV is just "microseismic event cloud" after all as Mayerhofer et al. put
it during 2008, and no one ever claimed that this is for a real or truly "stimulated volume " for a reservoir,
conventional or unconventional in general.
Let's examining this a little further by opening up the "MS event cloud": in shale, MS event cloud was
used to approximate the (fracture) network size " (Mayerhofer et al.2010), which did not demonstrate what
is the criteria for the MS event dots spacing in order to be counted as effective event could for SRV. This
is such an ambiguous engineering concept rarely seen before. There is no way to define what is the right
spacing between the event dots so that it can be called "stimulated "or "unstimulated" reservoir volume
in between those event dots, but practically people just take whatever those events regardless the distance
between dots or dots density.
We have to realize a basic fact about the MS dots, which is pretty much a "chicken and egg" concept thing
for the source onset time and velocity model in the data processing and interpretation of microseismic data.
In additional, reservoir heterogeneous properties and the interbedding introduce extra uncertainty to the MS
4 SPE-181810-MS

events due to the shear wave attenuation, data acquisition, data process and interpretations all those introduce
errors and those errors need to be estimated before one can trust the results, the SRV. As Fish (2012) indicated
that propagating a microseismic wavefield using an incorrect velocity model produces focusing at incorrect
locations in space and time because both source onset time and velocity model are unknown for the most
cases. Unconventional reservoir fracturing and production have proven that unconventional reservoirs are
highly heterogeneity for the most cases as well and the velocity model used can introduce unacceptable
uncertainty for some cases. If the introduced errors for different receivers are so much that the interpreted
MS event dots can be very well misleading the so-called SRV to anywhere and nowhere.
The interpretation of MS data can give us some ideas on hydraulic fracture length and height, especially
useful on distinguishing the fracture propagation orientation or trend direction. However, starting from
the Barnett shale fracturing about 15 years ago, MS events exhibited significantly more complex patterns
compared to typical tight-gas sandstone.
SRV and similar techniques provide little insight into two critical parameters: hydraulic fracture surface
area and conductivity. Each of these can vary significantly based on geologic conditions and fracture
treatment design. Hydraulic fracture surface area and fracture conductivity, combined with reservoir
permeability, stress regime, and rock properties, control well performance, not SRV (Cipolla, et al., 2014).
That is correct, not the SRV that we have talked about so far.
SRV is a very well over stretched concept during last 3 to 4 years by applying the "Barnett SRV concept"
to all kinds of shale reservoirs and even tight sand oil as well regardless. It may be the time to re-think and
reevaluated this "hot concept", and to take reasonable precautions. The true SRV should be related to the
production for a reservoir fracturing job. If it is not, it should be called the seismic event volume rather than
the stimulated volume. From Figure 1 SRV of a horizontal well is on the left, and the Active Production
Volume (APV) is shown on the right. Notice the APV is 40% less than the SRV (Vermilye et al. 2016).

Figure 1—The Stimulated Reservoir Volume (left) and the Active Production Volume (right) (Vermilye et al. 2016)

SRV analysis was provided for this study of tight sandstone oil reservoir in Jilin oilfield. And we will
discuss it below.
As Sierra et al. (2013) indicated that the key parameters which could use to analyze hydraulic fracture
are fracture effective fracture length, fracture conductivity, proppant distribution, and stress dependent of
the fracture conductivity.
The effective (opened and propped) fracture geometry has more contribution to the hydrocarbon
production than the fracture length measured by microseismic mapping during and after a fracture treatment
(Cipolla et al. 2008).
SPE-181810-MS 5

SRV for Tight Sandstone Fracturing: A Misapplied Concept?

For a tight sandstone reservoir like Fuyu in Jilin Field, the major goal of microseismic interpretation for
hydraulic fracturing is to get some ideas of the fracture propagation orientation and/or the fracture geometry
at the best, at the best should not be or cannot be the stimulated reservoir volume (SRV) especially for those
reservoirs that have no indication of well developed natural fractures.
Shale as source rock normally, and now it is called shale reservoir at "new normal", but that does not
give us any excuse to ignore the big difference between the low perm tight sandstone reservoir and the
unconventional shale reservoir even from hydraulic fracturing viewpoint.
We do not want to characterize the differences between of shale reservoir and tight sand reservoir item
by item besides said as above in the paper.
Having said in this paper, Jilin oilfield has started conducting multiple stage multi-cluster horizontal well
fracturing since 2011. A number of horizontal and vertical wells have been fractured, and over 2 dozens of
them have been monitored with microseismic.
Based on microseismic event cloud interpretation, for all those monitored wells hydraulic fracturing have
created fracture network around the wells. The lengths, widths and heights of those MS monitored fracture
networks range 100m ~ 950 m, 70m~200m and 50~190 m respectively for vertical wells. The calculated
SRV for those wells are between 2 million to 7.7 million cubic meters for each well. And the lengths, widths
and heights of those MS monitored fracture networks range 300m ~ 650 m, 50m~170m and 40~290 m
respectively for one stage of horizontal well, and the calculated SRV for one stage are between 0.6 million
to 4.5 million cubic meters for step to step. Most horizontal wells fracking were implemented with 10-18
stages per well, and the total SRV for entire horizontal wells range from 10 million to 25 million. We can see
that there are about 60% of stage have overlapping with the other stages. We also found that the monitored
SRVs using MS are overlapped between neighboring horizontal wells too.
As a scientific and engineering calculation method, especially for a very valuable and key figure like
"stimulated volume" for a reservoir, SRV, precautious approach is necessary at any rate. Shall we ask
how someone can possibly verify or prove the "monitored" SRV quantitatively? And also, we should ask
ourselves: can we trust "monitored" SRV quantitatively? If not, how much can be trust, and which part can
be trusted? After the microseismic signal was processed, the micro-seismic map, which represents the entire
microsites event, was created. Microseismic monitor had been applied to measure the fracture; however the
accuracy from the microseismic mapping is very questionable. The map resolution is highly relied on many
factors at field and the operators who conduct final interpretation. The inaccurate microseismic mapping
system results in a misinterpreted SRV analysis.
While the microseismic map was complete, the microseismic event map has been displayed
corresponding with time. This is the final result from the SRV monitoring. However from the studied cases,
the microseismic events observed in real time for a vertical well have reached the maximum area of SRV with
about just 1/5 of the total fracturing fluid volume injected, which means during the pad injection. Fracture
length, width and height did not change with the injection of proppant after pad injection (Figure 2).
6 SPE-181810-MS

Figure 2—Microseismic Event Cloud (left) fracture geometry vs injected volume (right)

Further, in a horizontal well fracturing case, from a real time microseismic monitoring, we can see that
the microseismic event cloud had already reached the maximum SRV area for most frac stage at the pad
phase (Figure 3). During proppant injection phase, the fracture almost did not grow anywhere.

Figure 3—Microseismic event cloud for horizontal well 11 stages, pad stage (left) proppant stage (right)

The microseismic-cloud based SRV calculation uses the Dot-in-Box interpretation methods. It cannot
describe the actual complex fracture network if there is any. The width from the MS data plot indicates
that all the fractures are complex fractures instead of single fracture regardless vertical or horizontal wells.
This raises some questions as we can see. The formation is mainly tight sandstone with shale interbeddings,
which create wave impedances causing the uncertainties of the P-wave and S-wave. This uncertainty was
believed to be one of the reasons for the exaggerated stimulated volume. As we can see above, the MS
monitored fracture heights range from 50-170m in Fuyu Field, while downhole pressure gages indicated
Fuyu having fairly good frac height confinement.
From the production and the SRV, the normalized production rate corresponding with the SRV is plotted in
Figure 4. There is no obvious correlation between the SRV and the current and the first 4 month production.
Hence a larger Microseismic event SRV do not corresponds with better production.
SPE-181810-MS 7

Figure 4—Normalized oil rate vs SRV for the current (right) and the first 4 months average (right)

SRV considers the fractured yet un-propped fracture as the volume that can increase the recovery, this
is not accurate from the production profile summary. Furthermore, the SRV concept usually simplifies
the reservoir model; however the actual reservoir is much more complicated, especially there are fracture
network existed. While the qualitative solution isn't the best choice, a quantitative solution has come forward
to solve the problems.

What is the Dominating Factor for Tight Sandstone Fracturing?

As we have seen above that the SRV shows a very weak correlation with the oil production rates even at
the early production time in that field. We have made correlation between the oil production rates verse
proppant volume and the amount of fluid, and we also see weak corrections between them. A normalized
oil production rate for different total liquid volume and the total proppant volume injected are used for both
cases (Figure 5).

Figure 5—Normalized oil rate vs total proppant injected (left), normalized oil rate vs frac fluid injected (right)

When we look at those correction between the rate vs inject proppant volume and total fluid in Eagle
Ford shale oil reservoir, the oil production rates verse proppant amount also show a weak correlation but it
shows relative stronger than correction between the rate with injected total fluid generated using Big Data
methodology (Gao et al, 2013), as shown in Figure 6.
8 SPE-181810-MS

Figure 6—BOED peak rate vs injected proppant (left), rate vs injected fluid volume (right) (Gao et al, 2013)

Comparing these correlations in Fuyu tight sand reservoir with shale oil in Eagle Ford, it may help us to
understand something. First of all, we can see that the proppant volume (SandTon) vs. rates plots are very
similar between Fuyu and Eagle Ford, but the other plots for the fluid amount vs rates have some difference
between those two fields, and from the plot of SRV vs. rates, we also see the similar trend for those two
fields. They may indicate that the Eagle shale oil reservoir has a much better effective fractures connection
than it does in Fuyu in general.
Those are simple analogies, and we have to look at more information and analyze more data on this tight
sand oil pay in order to have more ideas that will lead to more productive fracked wells in the near future.
One thing that we have to understand that, the reason that the correction between inject proppant volume
vs. rates shows weak correction is because we have looked those data a few hundred tons or above. It says
that when the proppant used at certain level, proppant volume is not an important factor. Of course, there is
no super long lateral well data here, which belongs to a different category.
We need to examine more parameter in detail and see which factor may play a more important role toward
production. Through the integrated studies of the geomechanical properties, petrophysical characteristics,
and fracturing data from the fractured wells of the tight oil reservoirs in Jilin field, numerous fracturing
modeling scenarios were compared with fracturing monitoring data. Fracture design is optimized by
analyzing the investment and the outcome of different designs to find the most economical solution for
reservoir stimulation. It focused on both production stimulation and the long term cumulative oil production.
Sensitivity analysis of the reservoir properties has been conducted through numerical simulation or field
data analysis.

Rock Geomechanics
Basic rock geomechanics properties and formation permeability are the foundation for fracturing design
and optimization regardless large scale or small scale with high pumping rate or low pumping rate. In-situ
horizontal stress differential, dynamic and static Young's modulus correction, Poisson's ratio, toughness,
brittleness index and etc. each of these parameters should be characterized carefully. For Fuyu formation,
the in-situ horizontal stress differential ranges from 8.5 to 9 Mpa; brittleness coefficient is between 40% to
60%; Stress shadow and fracture interferences are also detected through down hole pressure gages and the
simulated results also shows the similarity as field monitored. Fracture surrounding stress field is changed
while the fracture is propped open. It is known as the stress shadowing effect. The most impact from this
effect is to the fracture length and orientation. In this simulate cases minim cluster spacing is 30 m as shown
in Figure 7.
SPE-181810-MS 9

Figure 7—Cluster spacing effects the stress field

Reservoir Permeability
High heterogeneity of formation matrix is one of the most debatable variance for oil and gas developments.
The purpose of hydraulic fracturing is to increase the contact area between wellbore and formation and
increase the flow capacity near the wellbore area. Fluid flow capacity has significant effect to increase
the production. Formation fluids mobility is controlling the fluid loss problem during stimulation, and the
treatment fluid also influences the formation fluid mobility during production.
Figure 8 describes the simulated formation radial permeability and vertical permeability influence on the
daily oil production. From the plot, the radial permeability have more influence on the daily oil production;
vertical permeability has a certain impact on daily oil production but only in a small portion. Hence vertical
permeability is one of the primary factors for production.

Figure 8—Daily oil production Vs permeability A: radial permeability. B: vertical permeability

Optimized Fracturing Spacing Required from Fluid Flow Viewpoint

Multiple fracture horizontal wellbore provide the advantages of increasing the contact area between
wellbore and the formation. A better performance well has to effectively use the drainage area. This studied
performed a homogenies formation simulation, and added a heterogeneity correlation solve for the most
efficient cluster/stage distance.
From Darcy's Law the following equation can be derived.
Ep.1
Where: L is the drainage distance, m. V is the drainage speed, m/s, t is time, s, K is the absolute
permeability, mD, μ is the viscosity of formation oil, mPa.s, ΔP is the pressure gradient, Mpa/m.
10 SPE-181810-MS

Form the Percolation Theory, the drainage area can be simulated after a certain time. For example, for
a formation with permeability of 0.1 to 1 md, and the formation fluid viscosity of 4.1 mPa.s, the drainage
distance after one year of production is 0.2-2m. Hence the distances between each fracture cluster should
not exceed 40m to maximize the formation recover. Since the Fuyu reservoir has initial water saturation
around 40-50%, which is much lower than the middle or high perm reservoir in this area. We cannot expect
the oil and water flow as separated phase as in the convention reservoirs; instead water and oil flow with
phenomena of crowd flow segmentation, which is very common in the tight and shale oil reservoir.
The heterogeneity formation in the lateral part of the horizontal well is the primary factor that determines
the design of distance of fracture stages and clusters. The homogeneity formation study presented some
insight of fracture cluster designs. However the studied formation has the permeability from 0.1 to 1mD.
So the comprehensive design for different section in the horizontal well lateral is needed to achieve the
economic efficiency. Figure 9 shows the cluster spacing index for different permeability. When consider
formation K is at 0.7mD, as probability 50%, from the reservoir fluid flow view requires about 27 m cluster
spacing, which is close to 30 m in stress shadow calculation.

Figure 9—Cluster spacing index for different permeability

Production over time was calculated. From Figure 10 the predicted production has a perfect match with
the actual production rate. The success of production rate simulation empowers the operator to estimate the
production profile of the wells and a more precise economical evaluation.

Figure 10—Curve of production rate and cumulative production. The black line
is the simulated production rate, and the green line is the actual production rate.
SPE-181810-MS 11

Fracture Design Parameters

Proppant Selection and Fracture Conductivity. According to Stoke's Law, low viscosity fluid performs
better in proppant transportation; it is difficult for larger proppant to transport to farther distance from
the wellbore; the smaller difference between the proppant density and the fracturing fluid density, the
better proppant distribution. Proppant distribution, placement and settling poorly are common problems for
hydraulic fractures.
A hybrid fracturing treatment fluid was applied. From a full 3-D design simulation, the proppant
distributions are presented in Figure 11. A: Slick water with larger proppant, proppant covers shorter
distance, and settles at the bottom of the fracture. B: Slick water with smaller proppant, proppant covers
longer distance, but mostly distributed at the bottom of the fracture. C: cross linker gel with smaller proppant,
the proppant coverage length does not increase by much, but the proppant distribution covers the fracture
primary area. The fracture is effectively propped to maintain the conductivity.

Figure 11—Proppant distribution for different designs. A: slick water + large

proppant, B: slick water + small proppant, C: cross linker gel + small proppant

Figure 12 shows the impact of different fracture permeability on daily oil production. This data is based
on 360 days of production. From the plot, for low permeability, larger radius yields a better daily production,
and the daily production for high permeability has a peak value. Therefore, for low permeability reservoir,
with the proper fracture conductivity, increase in fracture length has the positive effect to production;
for the medium and high permeability formation, within the appropriate fracture radius, increase fracture
conductivity will achieve better production effect.
12 SPE-181810-MS

Figure 12—Daily oil production Vs fracture radius for different permeability of 1mD and 20 mD

Effective Propped Volume (EPV), primarily focused on the fractures that with the proppant placement
and distribution in the fracture. It has the most contribution to the fracture conductivity, and the key factor
for fracturing overall results.
From the lab experiment, the un-propped fracture has certain conductivity. However, as the pressure
released post fracturing operation and the reservoir under depletion, the conductivity of the un-propped
fracture was reduced rapidly, especially for this relatively high oil viscosity reservoir fluid. Secondarily,
EPV discussed in this paper also includes the volume in the reservoir that has "movable" fluids in the
formation within relative short time period, between 2-3 years of time when the fracture conductive decay
takes place significantly.
For the tight reservoir formation with viscous oil, fracture conductivity was the key to productivity. Differ
from the total stimulated volume; EPV defines the effective volume that contributes to the conductivity.
EPV is more "accountable "in the long time scale production life. Even the EPV value is a fraction of the
SRV, but the reservoir simulation needs the data to be rather accurate than overestimate.
Proppant distribution is directly related to the EPV. Proppant coverage contour plots were presented for
the studied well above. The correlation between proppant distribution and proppant volume is an important
factor and it needs a lot of simulation and testing works. A reservoir numerical simulation interacted with
3D finite element fracturing simulation provide an much better results, which has intergraded the whole
information from the pumping rate (pressure at fractures), conductivities of the fractures to the whole
reservoir geological model.
Fracturing Fluid System. Unlike the geological characteristics, the pumping fluid system is one of the
few matters that operators could control. Typical chemical properties of fracturing fluid were considered
to match the reservoir. Fracturing fluid is one of the factors that affect the fracture length and the proppant
distribution. An ideal Fracturing fluid system must not only leave the minimum contamination to the
reservoir, but more importantly, cause less fluid friction and carries the designed proppant and put it into
place. The full 3-D simulation tool empowers the operators to simulate the fluid system and provide the
best treatment design for the reservoir.
The slick water could control the fracture height and length effectively. Figure 13 shows the fracture
difference between slick water and the gel. Figure 13 A is the fracture created with slick water, B is the
fracture created with gel. Slick water could controls the fracture grown in length instead of in height. As
discussed in earlier section, long fracture length has the positive effect for lower permeability reservoir
development. Additionally, the color in Figure 13 represents the proppant distribution condition. The warm
color indicates higher proppant coverage, where the cold color represents low proppant coverage. The
SPE-181810-MS 13

selection with slick water creates a longer, more effective and uniformly coved fracture than the shorter
fracture created by gel.

Figure 13—Comparison of slick water and gel as fracturing fluid. A: fracture with slick water, B: fracture with gel

As the benefit of slick water application was suggested, a further study about the fluid system set up was
investigates. By simulating multiple scenarios with different total volume and different percentage of pre
pad volume and proppant caring fluid, the optimum fracturing fluid system has been designed.
Figure 14 shows the impact of different proportion of prepad fluid to the fracture. Prepad volume for
this simulation has been set at 40% 60% and 80%. A total of 1000m3 of fracturing fluid was applied for
all simulations. From the fracture length comparison, 60% prepad volume created the longest fracture half
length.

Figure 14—Fracture length with different proportion of fracturing fluid, A:

prepad volume is 40%, B: prepad volume is 60%, C: prepad volume is 80%

Total Injected Volume. In Figure 15, different volume of fracturing fluid was compared. In this
comparison, the prepad proportion has been set at 60%. The result shows that the slick water creates better
fracture half length, and the primary proppant has distributed with in the formation layer. However, when
the volume of total fluid injected is greater than 1000m3, the fracture length does not grow significantly.
From the economical point of view, 1000m3 of fracturing fluid volume is the best for this case.
14 SPE-181810-MS

3
Figure 15—Fracture proppant coverage for different volume of fracturing fluid used. A: 500m of fracturing
3
fluid was injected, the fracture length is 220m; B: 250m of fluid was injected, the fracture length is 75m; C:
3 3
1000m of fluid was injected, fracture length is 380m; D: 1500m of fluid was injected, fracture length is 420m

In addition, more total pumping volume would increases the fracture network complexity and the
drainage area. It improves the oil recovery in a certain range. From the studied well, the relation between
complex fracture length and the fluid volume is displayed in Figure 16. The peak value for the ultimate
fluid volume is between 1000 to 1300m3.

Figure 16—Complex fracture length vs. fluid volume

Poorly proppant distribution and settling are common problems for hydraulic fractures. The investigation
of proppant long term strength, displacement, transportation over time for each formation needs more
laboratory test support. In addition, gel residual which causes damage of the formation is another factor
needs further considerations.
SPE-181810-MS 15

Lessons learned and Conclusions

Large SRV only does not do much good as we have seen above, and this is a clear evidence that there
are other important factors that we have to study carefully. A lot of fluid and proppant injected in a dozen
horizontal wells up to 18 frac-stages for each well have improved the productions at certain degree at early
time, but economically it is not the sound of victory based on NPV calculations. The shale revolution in
North America has given us a lot of space to think, but not enough time to think about what will be best
way to develop tight sandstone reservoir like in Fuyu. Reservoir energy is one of key factors.
1. Reservoir Energy and Flowback:
Base on the reservoir characteristics of Fuyu reservoir, different flowback regimes need to be tested.
Different types of the flowbacks which includes fastback, soakback, and slowback have been tested
in this field.
For those wells with some reservoir energy support from the surrounding aquifers, short soakback
plus short shut-in regularly gave a better production; and for those wells with a little better reservoir
energy support from the surrounding aquifers, the combination of a couple of short soakback plus
short shut-in with middle term shut-in yielded a good results; and fast flowback with long time shut-
in and back to production again, it does not product a good result. Different best practices in flowback
procedures throughout all shale and tight rock plays are very worthwhile to study.
As Sharma at UT Austin has indicated in 2014, water in propped fracturing represents only 5%
of injected fluid for many unconventional reservoirs, which implies that 95% of the fluid is either
in the matrix, the induced un-propped fractures. Large amount of water as slickwater injected to the
reservoir during fracturing process creates extra energy for the reservoir and extra mobility for oil,
which help oil production and recovery. More research needs to be done on those in the near future.
2. The interpretation of microseismic data can give us some ideas on hydraulic fracture length and
height, especially useful on the fracture propagation orientation or trend direction. But, microseismic
–based, Stimulated Reservoir Volume (SRV) was a misinterpreted concept so far. The SRV cannot
be considered as an effective method to evaluate the degree of the reservoir stimulation. For a tight
sandstone reservoir, when the SRV concept is used, precaution should be taken. Finite element based
robust frac simulation aid design will create better ideas on EPV, which is more reliable for the
stimulated volume in tight oil reservoir.
3. Convert from single well to an intergrade multiple horizontal well developing strategies. Expand from
one single well production, to the unified field development maximization. Pumping rate, pumping
volume, and stage/cluster spacing are the three key factors that affecting the production and investment
ratio in tight sandstone oil formation.
4. The simulations results based on the well test data are quite consistent with the actual production. This
provides the operator powerful and handy tool for future fracturing development strategy through
integrated approaches.
5. Main fractures (could be planner fractures) are the backbone for tight oil fracturing.
6. Well drainage volume is maximized with the best cluster spacing design methods. It maximized oil
mobility and flow capacity in terms of time, and provides the developer a more permanent production
rate and leave less residual oil behind.
7. The total proppant volume is the key factor only when proppant distribution is carefully designed,
and reasonable fracture conductivity has been achieved for most part of the fractures.
8. Fracture conductivity is the factor of developing tight sandstone reservoir with oil in long term.
Quantification of fracture conductivity should analyze from accrual production data instead of direct
measurements.
16 SPE-181810-MS

9. During reservoir stimulation, the few controllable factors, such as proppant design, fluid system
design, pumping rate and volume, must be optimized and targeted at the maximum field long term
development. They directly correlate with the enhancement one could do to increase the recovery.
10. Fracturing fluid section is essential in the point of creating effective fracture conductivity no damage.
High quality guar leaves less residual and cause less damage to the formation, and helps better
proppant displacement too. Some chemical will improve oil mobility, such microemulsions, solvents,
liquefied gas, dispersants, etc.

Acknowledgement
The authors would like to express appreciations to all staff in Jilin Oilfield for data gathering and supporting,
and to M. Smith, M. Sharma, and G. King for their technical slides and discussions to make this paper
possible. The authors also wish to thank to engineers in IUT Group, Stim&EOR Tech, AndyTech, Ltd. and
Rising Energy Oil Tech (HXXN) for their supports on this work.

Nomenclature
K = Absolute permeability, mD
L = Drainage distance, m
t = Time, s
v = Drainage speed, m/s
ΔP = Pressure gradient, Mpa/m
μ = Viscosity, mPa.s

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