About this Training Course
This 3 full-day course presents a comprehensive review of well stimulation strategies and technologies from fundamentals to advances. Stimulation is one of the quickest and perhaps most cost-effective way of increasing well productivity. In the current oil market, these technologies are more important today and the skills in managing it is more valuable.
The need for stimulation may arise for different reasons in oil and gas wells:
- Formation permeability is too low to allow sufficient flow into the well bore. Hydraulic fracturing or acid fracturing is used to increase well productivity in this case. Fluid is injected at pressure above the formation fracturing pressure.
- Formation permeability near the well has reduced (or is damaged) due to drilling, completion, or production. The remedial is done by acid stimulation or matrix acidizing where fluid is injected at pressure below the fracturing pressure.
- Better reservoir management, reducing well count, sand control, or reducing the drawdown.
Most stimulation courses discuss the ‘How to Do’ part of well stimulation, that is, the nuts and bolts of stimulation. The more important part of ‘What to Do’ or which stimulation technique to use where, is rarely covered in detail. In this course, we will discuss both aspects of stimulation – ‘what to do’ and then ‘how to do’. Optimization of stimulation treatment will be discussed together with the design of the treatment. There is no ‘one size fits all’ in well stimulation. Every well is unique and there are decisions to be made at every stage such as what is the best well completion design, optimum number of frac stages, how much fluid should be pumped, the best type of fluid and additives, how much and what type of proppant or acid should be pumped, the best operational procedure during the treatment and how to use real time monitoring techniques to make any adjustments in the original design. Above all, what is the optimum mix of all these variables that will maximise the NPV.
In the last two decades, hydraulic fracturing has unlocked billions of barrels of oil in shale rocks that was otherwise unproducible. The application of hydraulic fracturing in shale and tight reservoirs will be discussed in detail.
This course will help the participants choose the right stimulation method and materials for their reservoirs and apply it in an optimal and engineered manner. A guideline for selection of treatment type and materials will be presented in different sessions. The course will follow a general theme of Design – Execute – Real Time Monitoring, and Post treatment Evaluation for different stimulation techniques.