Advances in Frac-Pack Technology
Posted: 20 June 2005
Frac-packing Aconcagua field wells. The Schlumberger DeepSTIM I and DeepSTIM II stimulation vessels performed frac-pack combined stimulation and gravel packing for Total while moored beside the Transocean Discoverer Spirit drillship.
Frac packing, which combines tip-screenout hydraulic fracturing with gravel packing of mechanical screens, consistently yields sustained production increases.
This method has proven effective in a wide range of weakly consolidated formations, especially high-permeability reservoirs. Frac packs now represent more than 65% of sand-control completions in the US Gulf of Mexico.
 Frac packing avoids many productivity impairments common in conventional cased-hole gravel packs. It effectively bypasses formation damage, or skin, and creates an "external" pack around wellbores that stabilizes perforations not aligned with the main propped fracture.
As oil and gas development activity has moved into greater water depths, frac-packing methods have continued to improve. As a result, there is potential for further increases in well productivity.
Reliable techniques for establishing fracture-closure pressure and for select optimal treatment fluids are now available. These optimization techniques are critically important in deepwater fields, particularly those with subsea wells, where remedial operations to remove damage or restimulate wells are difficult, complex and costly.
"Optimizing Frac Packs," an article in the Autumn 2004 issue of Oilfield Review, summarizes experience gained by Total E&P USA and Marathon Oil Company in the ultradeepwater Aconcagua and Camden Hills fields of the Gulf of Mexico Canyon Express development. This article discusses how engineers designed and placed highly conductive propped fractures that reduced completion skin from 10 to less than 5.
Tested in this ultradeepwater environment, frac-pack optimization techniques can also be applied in other areas to help operators achieve more effective sand-control completions that enhance well productivity.
Posted by Editor Pipeline Magazine
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