A New Production Casing Design to Withstand Combined Installation Compression Loading and High Multi-Stage Hydraulic Fracturing Pressures in Montney Shale Horizontal Wells
Date
2015-03-30
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Abstract
In order to make a low permeability shale reservoir economically attractive, it is critical to maximize the well contact with the reservoir by drilling long horizontal wells into the producing formation, and then to stimulate the well by means of massive multi-stage hydraulic fracturing.
To this end, the well is equipped with a casing tubular system that initially serves as the pipe by which hydraulic fracturing is done, and subsequently acts as the conduit that transports hydrocarbons from the reservoir to the surface.
In recent years, there has been production casing failures characterized by pipe leaking during hydraulic fracturing jobs in the Montney shale of British Columbia. Costs of these failures have ranged between $2MM and $15MM in NPV loss.
These technical and economic failures have inspired the research presented in this thesis. Key contribution of this work: Development of a new tapered string made out of 22.4 x 17.3 kg/m casing, which takes into account all acting loads during casing installation and withstands high pressures during multi-stage hydraulic fracturing jobs in horizontal wells. The cost of the improved tapered string is similar to the cost of previous casing designs.
Casing design has been traditionally done to withstand the most critical loads during the production phase of the well life. Fracturing loading has been incorporated into the casing design process merely as a casing burst load defined by the hydrostatic pressure of the fracturing fluid plus the surface pressure applied to that column of fluid. However, there has been minimum work done to incorporate the combined casing installation and hydraulic fracturing loads into the design process. The research presented in this thesis meets that need.
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Engineering--Petroleum
Citation
Suarez Jerez, N. A. (2015). A New Production Casing Design to Withstand Combined Installation Compression Loading and High Multi-Stage Hydraulic Fracturing Pressures in Montney Shale Horizontal Wells (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/24871