COMPLETION/STIMULATION
Rewriting the Rules for High-Permeability Stimulation
Stimulation of high-permeability formations has long been the domain of matrix treatments.
Now, short, wide fractures are being created to
Bob Hanna A classic fracture stimulation creates nar-
BP Exploration Inc. row conduits that reach deep into a forma-
Houston, Texas, USA tion—typically, about 1/10 in. [2.5 millime-
ters] wide and up to 1000 ft [300 m] long.
Joseph Ayoub Since the 1940s, relatively low-permeabil-
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
ity formations—less than 20 millidarcies
(md)—have been successfully fractured to
Bob Cooper
give worthwhile increases in productivity.
Houston, Texas, USA However, as formation permeability
increases, creating and propagating frac-
For help in preparation of this article, thanks to Paul
tures become more difficult and economi-
cally less necessary. In high-permeability
Martins, BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., Anchorage,
Alaska, USA; and Jack Elbel and Richard Marcinew, reservoirs, formation damage is usually
Dowell Schlumberger, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA.
diagnosed as the major restraint on produc-
tivity and matrix acidization treatments are
prescribed as the solution (see “Trends in
Matrix Acidizing,” page 24).
But matrix acidization cannot solve every
problem. The volume of damaged rock
sometimes requires uneconomically large
quantities of acid. The damage may be
beyond the reach of the matrix treatment.
Diverting acid into the right parts of the for-
mation may also be difficult. Additionally,
the aqueous treatment fluid or the acid
itself may threaten the integrity of the well-
bore by dissolving cementing material that
holds particles of rock together.
An alternative strategy for stimulating
high-permeability wells has therefore
emerged: the creation of fractures that are
typically less than 100 ft [30 m] long and
18
Undamaged reservoir
Damage
Short, wide fracture
nShort, wide fractures bypass widespread
formation damage and link undamaged
rock with the wellbore.
up to 1 in. [2.5 centimeters] wide after clo-
sure (above ). To appreciate how short, wide
fractures stimulate high-permeability forma-
tions, one must examine the factors govern-
ing postfracture productivity.
The permeability contrast between the
formation and the propped fracture is a key
determinant of the optimum fracture length.
In low-permeability formations there is a
large contrast—and therefore a high relative
conductivity—and increased fracture length
can yield improved productivity (next page ).
In high-permeability formations, relative
conductivity is about two orders of magni-
tude smaller. Increasing the length of con-
ventional fractures offers only minimal
improvement in productivity and cannot be
justified economically. However, the pro-
ductive performance of the fracture is deter-
mined by the dimensionless fracture con-
ductivity which is directly proportional to
the fracture width.1 Conductivity can be
raised by increasing fracture width; in high-
permeability formations, this offers signifi-
cant potential improvements in productivity.
Oilfield Review
reach beyond wellbore damage and provide a conduit to undamaged reservoir rock.

Pinpointing the birthplace of high-perme-

High-permeability
ability fracturing is difficult, but it is clear formations
that work carried out by Sohio Petroleum 1.0

fracture length/drainage radius (x f /re)

0.9
Co. (now BP Exploration Inc.) inspired Low-permeability
0.8
much of today’s thinking. In 1984, in Prud- formations
0.7
hoe Bay, Alaska, USA, Sohio fractured a

Length of fracture,
0.6
Increasing productivity

well with a permeability of about 60 md. 0.5

The overriding aim of the exercise was to
stimulate the well while avoiding fracturing 0.4
into the oil/water contact (OWC) about 115 0.3
ft [35 m] below the lowermost perforation.2
In a relatively small fracturing treatment, 0.2

some 15,000 gal [57 m3] of gelled fluid 0.1

were pumped at 45 bbl/min, placing 12,000
lb [5440 kg] of proppant in the fracture.
This treatment was calculated to be suffi-
cient to create a fracture with a propped 10 2 10 3 10 4 10 5 10 6

length of 43 ft [13 m], which, based on the Relative conductivity

assumption that one foot of lateral exten-
sion would result in one foot of downward
fracture migration, left the fracture easily
short of the OWC. The treatment was a
mechanical success and production
increased by 133%—versus a theoretical
maximum of 160%.
Rather than quantify fracture width, con-
ventional terminology uses proppant con-
centration—most commonly stated as
pounds of proppant per square foot of frac-
ture [lbm/ft2 ]—which is directly proportional
to the width. A conventional, long and nar-
row fracture may contain 0.5 lbm/ft 2 of
proppant. The Sohio job was designed to
place 1 lbm/ft2—modest by today’s stan-
dards, which aspire to place 4 lbm/ft2 or more.
After this job, attention shifted to the
North Sea. The Valhal field, offshore Nor-
way, has a soft chalk reservoir. Amoco Pro-
duction Co. found that, although the forma-
tion was not highly permeable (about 2 md)
nIncrease in posttreatment productivity versus relative fracture
conductivity—proportional to the permeability contrast between
the formation and propped fracture—for a variety of fracture
lengths (shown as fracture length/drainage radius). In these curves
for steady-state production, a normal, low-permeability fracture
treatment has a relative conductivity on the order of 10 5. Conse-
quently, there is scope to increase productivity by increasing
fracture length.
But for high-permeability formations, relative conductivity is
about 10 3, and an increase in fracture length makes virtually no
difference. However, if a wider fracture can be created, fracture
conductivity is increased, yielding a higher relative conductiv-
ity. This increases productivity for a given fracture length and
offers the chance of raising productivity by increasing the frac-
ture length.
Adapted from McGuire WJ and Sikora VJ: “The Effect of Vertical
Fractures on Well Productivity,” Transactions of the AIME 219 (1960):
401-403.
1. C = Kf W
fd
KX f
where: Cfd is the dimensionless fracture conductivity,
K f is the permeability of the proppant pack, W is the
width of the fracture, K is the permeability of the for-
mation and X f is the length of the fracture.
2. Hannah RR and Walker EJ: “Fracturing a High-Perme-
ability Oil Well at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska,” paper SPE
14372, presented at the 60th SPE Annual Technical
Conference and Exhibition, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA,
September 22-25, 1985.

October 1992 19

A ulation was difficult. After acid fracturing,
Proppant
bridges
at tip
B forms a pack near the end of the fracture
Proppant
Fluid
leakoff
C
Proppant
fills
fracture
nTip-screenout treatments place a high
proppant concentration and create frac-
tures that are usually less than 100 ft long
and up to 1 in. wide.
A) The fracture is propagated to its
desired length just as the proppant in
the slurry begins to bridge off near the
tip of the fracture, preventing further
propagation.
B) Additional slurry is pumped into the
fracture increasing the net pressure
inside the fracture, causing it to widen.
C) Further dehydration of the slurry cre-
ates a pack of proppant that gradually
evolves from the tip toward the wellbore.
20
it was very unstable and conventional stim-
the acid-etched channels quickly collapsed
as pore pressure was reduced. And after a
conventional propped fracture, the proppant
became embedded in the soft rock, destroy-
ing fracture conductivity.
In 1986, Amoco opted to place a high
concentration of proppant in a wide fracture
using a technique it called “tip screenout.”
In normal fracturing, the tip should be the
final part of the fracture to be packed with
proppant. But in tip screenout, the proppant
early in the treatment. When additional
proppant-bearing slurry is pumped into the
fracture, its length cannot grow, so the width
increases (left ).3
At about the same time, in the UK sector
of the North Sea, BP Petroleum Develop-
ment Ltd. was applying tip screenout tech-
niques to stimulate gas wells in the Raven-
spurn South field. Permeability was 2 md
higher than gas wells that are normally frac-
tured, but BP found that conductivity of
long, conventional fractures limited the
reservoir’s high rate of production, giving
only a threefold increase in production.
Laboratory tests showed that up to 0.5
lbm/ft2 of proppant in the fracture can be
“lost” largely through embedment. To com-
bat this loss in conductivity, stimulation pro-
grams were designed to create wide frac-
tures, typically placing 3 to 4 lbm/ft 2 of
proppant. This “excess” of proppant
ensured that enough remained in the frac-
ture after embedment to deliver the
designed conductivity. Subsequent treat-
ments in Ravenspurn South, using high
proppant concentrations, posted increases
in production of up to sevenfold.4
Tip screenout also returned to Prudhoe
Bay. Since 1989, BP and ARCO Alaska Inc.
have employed tip-screenout treatments and
report considerable success.5
3. Smith MB, Miller WK and Haga J: “Tip Screenout
Fracturing: A Technique for Soft, Unstable Formations,”
SPE Production Engineering 2 (May 1987): 95-103.
4. Martins JP, Leung KH, Jackson MR Stewart, DR and
Carr AH: “Tip Screen-Out Fracturing Applied to the
Ravenspurn South Gas Field Development,” paper
SPE 19766, presented at the 64th SPE Annual Techni-
cal Conference and Exhibition, San Antonio, Texas,
USA, October 8-11, 1989.
5. Reimers DR and Clausen RA: “High-Permeability
Fracturing at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska,” paper SPE 22835,
presented at the 66th SPE Annual Technical Conference
and Exhibition, Dallas, Texas, USA, October 6-9, 1991.
Martins JP, Bartel PA, Kelly RT, Ibe OE and Collins PJ:
“Small Highly Conductive Hydraulic Fractures Near
Reservoir Fluid Contacts: Applications to Prudhoe
Bay,” paper SPE 24856, presented at the 67th Annual
SPE Technical Conference and Exhibition, Washington
DC, USA, October 4-7, 1992.
However, following some tip-screenout
treatments, proppant flowed out of the
fracture during posttreatment production.
This is caused by factors such as low effec-
tive stress in the proppant pack or drag
forces due to high-velocity flow in the con-
ductive pack. Proppant flowback leads to
reduced fracture conductivity or blockages
at the fracture-wellbore interface. If the
proppant is flowed to surface, damaging
erosion of the production equipment can
also occur.
Sand-control techniques have been
employed after fracturing to prevent prop-
pant flowback. The two main techniques
use resin-coated proppant or gravel pack-
ing. Proppant coated with a curable resin
consolidates once the proppant has been
placed in the fracture and resists drag during
production. Alternatively, the fracture treat-
ment can be followed by a gravel pack
using a conventional screen to retain the
proppant within the fracture (see “Sand
Control: Why and How?” page 41).
In Indonesia, more than 30 treatments
have been carried out that combine tip-
screenout fracturing with either resin con-
solidation or a gravel pack. These wells had
high skin factors but undamaged permeabil-
ities in excess of 100 md. Following treat-
ment, many now produce with low skin fac-
tors while adjacent conventionally-
completed wells have skins of 20 to 40 (see
”Average Data From Three Types of Treat-
ment,” next page, below left ).6
Tip-screenout fracturing and gravel pack-
ing treatments are also being used in combi-
nation in the Gulf of Mexico, USA. Over the
past 12 months, more than a dozen com-
bined treatments in formations with perme-
abilities as high as 1 darcy have realized
two- to threefold improvements in produc-
tion (next page, below right).
Experience around the world has enabled
development of a methodology for selecting
6. Peters FW, Cooper RE and Lee B: “Pressure-Pack
Stimulation Restores Damaged Wells’ Productivity,”
paper IPA 88064, Proceedings Indonesian Petroleum
Association 17th Annual Convention, Jakarta, Indone-
sia, October 1988.
Peters FW and Cooper RE: “A New Stimulation Tech-
nique for Acid-Sensitive Formations,” paper SPE
19490, presented at the SPE Asia-Pacific Conference,
Sydney, Australia, September 13-15, 1989.
7. Ayoub JA, Kirksey JM, Malone BP and Norman WD:
“Hydraulic Fracturing of Soft Formations in the Gulf
Coast,” paper SPE 23805, presented at the SPE Forma-
tion Damage Symposium, Lafayette, Louisiana, USA,
February 26-27, 1992.
Oilfield Review
wells for tip-screenout treatments. 7 There
are three classes of candidate:
•Reservoirs with significant wellbore dam-
age, perhaps caused by formation col-
lapse as the pore pressure reduces during
depletion. Past matrix treatments have
failed, and short, wide fractures are
designed to bypass the damage and con-
nect the undamaged part of the reservoir Proppant
with the wellbore.
•Reservoirs with fines migration. A short,
wide fracture can alleviate this by reduc-
ing pressure losses and velocities in the
reservoir sand near the wellbore.
•Multiple pay zones in laminated sand-
shale sequences. The thin sand laminae nLaminated pay zone with sand-shale sequences. The sand lam-
may not communicate efficiently with the inae may be connected to the wellbore by short, wide fractures.
wellbore until a fracture provides a con-
tinuous connection to the perforations thinner than 5 ft (1.5 m) and the formation After a candidate well has been identified,
(above, right ). strength. Specialized techniques like the next stage is to design the treatment, a
Candidate selection is a multidisciplinary microresistivity logging may then be used to process that relies on knowledge of the
task. Basic openhole logs detect sands and detect thinner layers of interbedded sand- rock’s mechanical properties and an esti-
their bounding shales, and indicate their rel- shale laminae. Logs also detect water-bear- mate of the stresses in the reservoir and
ative permeability and degree of inva- ing zones which must be considered during adjacent rock (see “Cracking Rock: Progress
sion—gaining an insight into the formation’s the design. Pressure transient analysis is in Fracture Treatment Design,” page 4 ).
natural permeability before damage, the used to identify wellbore damage and quan-
depth of invasion, the presence of zones tify the production potential of the well.
Simulation
10 3 Data
Average Data From Three Types of Treatment
Treatment Type
Production rate, B/D

Average data Type A Type B Type C

Total vertical depth, ft 7240 3560 4400
Zone thickness, ft 68 32 48 Fractured
Zone permeability, md 72 53 60
Pad volume, gal 1600 5100 3500
Slurry volume, gal 685 2000 1740
Nonfractured
In-situ proppant concentration, lbm/ft2 3.8 2.1 1.2 10 2
0 30 60 90
Propped fracture length, ft 28 115
Production time, days
Propped fracture conductivity, md-ft 5670
Pretreatment oil production, BPD 1040 156 nPredicted and real productivity increase in a Gulf of Mex-
ico, USA, well stimulated in early 1992 using tip-screenout
Posttreatment oil production, BPD 2140 1313 fracturing.
Pretreatment skin 18
Posttreatment skin 2.3
Treatment Type A Treatment Type B Treatment Type C
A series of six Indonesian Two Indonesian wells Series of treatments
wells fractured using the fractured with tip-screenout performed on two offshore
tip-screenout technique. treatments performed exploration wells to create
Although all the wells were through gravel-pack tools vertical communication
potential sand producers no and screens to place a between several thin, high-
special sand-control small, highly conductive permeability zones that
techniques were employed. fracture and a gravel pack were believed to be water-
in a single step. and acid-sensitive.

October 1992 21
 Mechanical properties can be derived
using cores, logs and direct in-situ measure-
ments. In many cases, however, retrieving
good cores and then accurately testing them
in the laboratory are difficult. Log-derived
mechanical properties rely on density and
sonic measurements. Both compressional
and shear sonic measurements work well in
consolidated, fast formations. But in soft,
slow formations, conventional sonic tools
cannot measure shear wave velocity. How-
ever, a recently introduced dipole sonic tool
can now make these shear wave velocity
measurements in any formation.8
In practice, there is rarely a comprehen-
sive collection of core and log data with
which to build a model predicting fracture
shape, used for treatment design. To plug
this knowledge gap, data are collected using
stress tests.
Stress tests consist of pumping a relatively
small volume of ungelled fluid without
22
proppant into the formation at sufficient
pressure to fracture the well. In normal,
low-permeability stress tests pumping is
then stopped and the pressure can be moni-
tored during flowback. However, in high-
permeability formations, the fluid normally
leaks off into the formation rather than flow-
ing back. Stress test are repeated several
times and the resulting pressure measure-
nFracturing high-permeability formations
in Indonesia. A specially modified twin
50-bbl mixer is capable of mixing and
pumping 18 lbm/gal slurries at more than
20 bbl/min. A centralized control station
allows one operator to control and monitor
the complete treatment—essential as pump-
ing times can be as short as 2 minutes.
ments are used to determine the minimum
in-situ stress, which equals the closure pres-
sure of the fracture.
Analysis of data from stress tests and
larger-volume calibration tests—which frac-
ture the formation usually using gelled fluid
without proppant—enables choice of the
most suitable fracture geometry model and
confirmation of the fluid leakoff coefficient.
Fracture geometry models of varying sophis-
tication are available. All of them use the
basic processes that occur during fractur-
ing—fluid flow in the fracture and leakoff,
proppant transportation and settling, and
rock response—to describe the relationship
Oilfield Review
between pressure and fracture shape and
produce criteria for fracture propagation.
The models assume that rock is an elastic
material, meaning that its deformation is
reversible. Dowell Schlumberger is cur-
rently examining whether this assumption
holds for soft formations, as it is an impor-
tant factor when looking at the fracture clo-
sure and the stress it exerts on the proppant
pack. If closure stress is less than antici-
pated, the proppant pack could become
unstable during production—unless the
treatment has included a gravel pack.
Calibration tests also provide a more
accurate way of measuring fluid-loss char-
acteristics of the fracturing fluid than can be
devised in a laboratory. Fluid loss depends
on the viscosity and wall-building capability
of the fracturing fluid, the viscosity and
compressibility of the reservoir fluid, and
the permeability and porosity of the forma-
tion. In a formation with high porosity and
permeability, fluid loss can be controlled by
increasing the viscosity of the fracturing
fluid or enhancing the fluid’s wall-building
capability on the fracture face by the addi-
tion of polymers and properly sized fluid-
Net pressure, psi
the proppant size, the greater the fracture
permeability. In gravel packs, the sand must
have intergranular spaces small enough to
keep formation sand at bay.
To date, most wells have been treated
using the same size proppant for the fracture
and the gravel pack. This simplifies proce-
dures but in most cases, proppant size tends
to be smaller—and therefore of lower con-
ductivity—than would ideally have been
employed if fracturing had been carried out
alone. ARCO has been performing treat-
ments with larger than normal sand sizes.9
After the job is completed, the first perfor-
mance yardstick is its mechanical suc-
cess—“Has everything gone according to
plan?” The effectiveness of the treatment
may then be assessed by comparing theoret-
ical net pressures (fracture propagation pres-
sure minus closure pressure) with pressures
measured during the treatment by down-
1000
500
hole memory gauges (below ). Other place-
ment evaluation techniques include use of
multiple-isotope tracers in the sand and
temperature logs to estimate the fracture
height and assess the fracture’s communica-
tion with the perforated interval along the
wellbore by tracing cooling anomalies
where the fluid has entered the formation.
However, the most important indicators of
success are the well’s production responses
both immediately after treatment and during
the rest of its productive life. To date, these
indicate that the traditional guidelines ruling
out fracturing for high-permeability forma-
tions have been successfully rewritten.—CF
8. “Taking Advantage of Shear Waves,” Oilfield Review
4, no. 3 (July 1992): 52-54.
9. Hainey BW and Troncoso JC: “Frac-Pack: An Innova-
tive Stimulation and Sand Control Technique,” paper
SPE 23777, presented at the SPE International Sympo-
sium on Formation Damage Control, Lafayette,
Louisiana, USA, February 26-27, 1992.
Simulation
Data

loss control agents.

Once the choice of fracturing fluid is con-
firmed, the next step is to design a pumping
schedule capable of delivering the neces- 100
sary high proppant concentrations. The data
generated by stress and calibration tests are
fed into the chosen fracture geometry
model, which calculates the volume
required to initially propagate the fracture to 2 5 10 20 50 100
a predetermined length. To ensure tip Production time, days
screenout, proppant concentration in the
fracture fluid is gradually increased during nComparing simulated pressures with the real thing. The
the treatment from zero at the start, to more effectiveness of a treatment can be judged by comparing
theoretical net pressures with pressures measured during
than 16 lbm/gal at the end. the job using downhole gauges. This plot of a tip-screen-
Continuous mix and batch mix treatments out fracturing job shows excellent agreement between
using high concentrations of proppant have the simulated and actual pressures.
been executed fairly smoothly. In the larger
continuous mix jobs maintaining high con-
centrations of sand may require specialized
blending equipment (previous page).
Choice of proppant size depends on the
ultimate fracture conductivity needed and
whether the treatment is being carried out in
conjunction with a gravel pack. The larger

October 1992 23