Saudi Arabian Oil Company

Yanhui Han

Younane N Abousleiman

Katherine Leigh Hull

Chao Liu

Hui-Hai Liu

Ghaithan Muntasheri

David J Jacobi

Mohammad Hamidul Haque

Dung T Phan

Feng Liang

Leiming Li

Bitao Lai

Hui Li

Khalid Mohammed Alruwaili

Shawn Rimassa

Mohammed Ali Ibrahim Sayed

Brent Cooper

Rajesh Kumar Saini

Murtadha J AlTammar

Khalid Mohammed M Alruwaili

Kaiming Xia

Khalid AlRuwaili

Zhuang Sun

Ming Fan

A method for developing a procedure for pretreating a section of a wellbore prior to hydraulic fracturing stimulation of the section of the wellbore includes determining an optimized notch geometry and determining an optimized chemical treatment for the section of the wellbore. The optimized notch geometry is determined by modeling a notch in the section of the wellbore using a computing system, simulating a pressure increase in the section of the wellbore and on the notch from a hydraulic fracturing stimulation, identifying breakdown pressure in the section of the wellbore, and repeating the modeling, simulating, and identifying to determine the optimized notch geometry in the wellbore as the notch having a lowest breakdown pressure. The optimized chemical treatment is determined by determining a rock type in the section of the wellbore and determining a conditioning fluid that reduces the tensile strength of the rock type.

Workflow for optimizing engineering procedure to reduce borehole breakdown pressure by combination of oriented notching/perforation and fluid chemical conditioning process in open and cased hole

A system for determining a direction for drilling a well is disclosed. The system has a device in a portion of a conveyance mechanism comprising a cylindrical housing with at least one sensor that tracks a position of the portion during a drilling operation, the device being configured to obtain a plurality of drilling parameters, and a control system coupled to the device and configured to perform at least one reservoir simulation, and prepare a plurality of required parameters while drilling. The device uses an optimization box to simulate increasing an angle between a drilling direction and a maximum horizontal stress by calculating a minimum mud pressure required to prevent borehole collapse. The control system generates an engineering curve representative of each angle simulated and a corresponding mud weight or pressure, and the device and the control system identify an optimal direction corresponding to a minimum drilling mud pressure parameter.

System and method for determining a direction for drilling a well

A 3D printed proppant includes a core having support bars extending from the core to a shell, the shell encapsulating the core and the support bars. Another 3D printed proppant includes a porous core and a shell encapsulating the porous core, where the porous core has a porosity from 25% to 75%. The 3D printed proppant has a particle size from 8 mesh to 140 mesh. The core, the support bars, the porous core, the shell, or combinations thereof includes metal, polymer, ceramic, composite, or combinations thereof. Additionally, a method for producing a 3D printed proppant is provided.

3D printed proppants and methods of making and use thereof

A method for measuring multiple rock properties using a multi-stage indentation test is provided. The method includes measuring load and displacement versus time on an indentation measurement unit, while preforming the multi-stage indentation test. The multi-stage indentation test includes indenting a saturated specimen to full load to generate a line segment 1, releasing the load on the saturated specimen to generate a line segment 2, indenting the saturated specimen to full load to generate a line segment 3, holding the loading until the displacement curve levels off to generate a line segment 4, and reducing the loading to zero to generate a line segment 5.

Indentation method to measure multiple rock properties

A method for obtaining a maximum horizontal stress at a depth of a geological formation, includes: setting an estimate Sof the maximum horizontal stress; conducting an elastoplastic modeling simulation of the geological formation around a wellbore with the estimate Sand obtaining a simulated value ϕof a breakout angle, wherein the breakout angle is a half-width of a breakout region; and upon determining that the estimate ϕis greater than or equal to a prescribed value and is different from a measured breakout angle ϕat the depth by more than a threshold value, repeatedly changing the estimate Sand conducting the elastoplastic modeling simulation.

Method for determining in-situ maximum horizontal stress

A method includes obtaining total stresses and pore pressures of each porous medium of a formation, determining a first and second set of effective stresses for the formation, determining an individual collapse and fracturing mud weight for each porous medium of the formation using a first set of associated failure criteria, wherein the first set of associated failure criteria are based on the first set of effective stresses, determining an overall collapse and fracturing mud weight for the formation using a second set of associated failure criteria, wherein the second set of associated failure criteria is based on the second set of effective stresses, determining a mud weight window for the formation using the individual collapse mud weight, the individual fracturing mud weight, the overall collapse mud weight, and the overall fracturing mud weight, and transmitting a command to a drilling system based on the mud weight window.

Method for the determination of mud weight window in N-porosity N-permeability formations

A method for evaluating an integrity of a liner disposed in a wellbore, that contacts a formation through a cement layer between the liner and the formation, includes computing a stress on a boundary of the liner by an iteration procedure that implements an analytical solution of stresses on a liner-cement interface and a cement-formation interface using the geometric data, performing numerical simulations using the computational numerical model to calculate a magnitude and distribution of stresses acting on the liner-cement interface and the cement-formation interface, performing numerical simulations with the actual in-situ stresses to replace the mean in-situ stress on the outer boundary of formation layer to calculate magnitude and distribution of stresses acting on the liner-cement and cement-formation interfaces using the calibrated computational mesh and applying the calculated stresses acting on the liner to a liner integrity evaluation model to determine an integrity of the liner at a plurality of stages of the wellbore.

Hybrid procedure for evaluating stress magnitude and distribution on a liner

The subject matter of this specification can be embodied in, among other things, a method for treating a geologic formation that includes providing a hydraulic fracture model, providing a first value representative of a volume of kerogen breaker in a fracturing fluid, determining a discrete fracture network (DFN) based on the hydraulic fracture model and the first value, determining a geomechanical model based on the DFN and a reservoir model based on the DFN, determining a hydrocarbon production volume based on the geomechanical model and the reservoir model, adjusting the first value based on the hydrocarbon production volume, and adjusting a volume of kerogen breaker in the fracturing fluid to a hydrocarbon reservoir based on the adjusted first value.

Hydraulic fracturing in kerogen-rich unconventional formations

Systems and methods for predicting a breakdown pressure of a formation and fracturing the formation account for filter cake effects. The systems and methods measure a time-dependent permeability and a time-dependent thickness of a filter cake formed by a first drilling mud. The systems and methods determine a time-dependent permeability model and a time-dependent thickness model of the filter cake. The systems and methods select a breakdown pressure model based on (i) the time-dependent thickness of the filter cake, (ii) the time-dependent permeability of the filter cake, and (iii) the permeability of the formation. The systems and methods use the selected breakdown pressure model to predict the breakdown pressure of the formation and fracture the formation using a drilling fluid having a mud weight associated with the predicted breakdown pressure of the formation.

Fracturing a subsurface formation based on the required breakdown pressure accounting for filter cake

A method is used to determine the permeability of a hydraulic fracture. The method includes obtaining formation parameters and a plurality of formation samples, dividing the plurality of formation samples into a first group and a second group, measuring mechanical and hydraulic properties of the first group, soaking the second group in a fracturing fluid for a plurality of time periods, and measuring, after each soaking time period, the mechanical and hydraulic properties of the second group. The soaking the second group in the fracturing fluid includes soaking the second group in a plurality of different fracturing fluids. The method further includes building, using a computer processor, a proppant-rock interaction model based, at least in part, on the mechanical and hydraulic properties of the first group and the second group, and determining, using the computer processor, the permeability of a hydraulic fracture based, at least in part, on the proppant-rock interaction model and the formation parameters.

Workflow to evaluate the time-dependent proppant embedment induced by fracturing fluid penetration

A method includes preparing a rocklike core sample for compressive testing, the rocklike core sample defining a longitudinal axis and having first and second axial ends. Preparing the rocklike core sample includes providing a throughhole in the rocklike core sample, the throughhole extending between a first opening at the first axial end and a second opening at the second axial end, wherein the first opening and the second opening are dimensioned differently. The rocklike core sample is mounted in a compressive testing apparatus, and a compressive test is performed on the rocklike core sample in the compressive testing apparatus. The compressive test includes compression in axial and radial directions. A related system includes a compressive testing apparatus and a sample preparation apparatus which prepares a rocklike core sample for compressive testing in the compressive testing apparatus, via providing a throughhole in the rocklike core sample.

Thick-wall cylinder experiment setup for wellbore stability analysis

Systems and methods for determining mechanical properties of formation rock using, for example, millimeter-scale test samples of the formation rock are disclosed. The test samples may be single edge notched beam (SENB) test samples. The systems and methods may include performing laboratory testing on the SENB test samples and recording laboratory testing data obtained from the laboratory testing and performing a simulation on a numerical model of the SENB test samples and recording the simulation data obtained from the simulation. The laboratory testing data and the simulation data may be compared, and a determination may be made as to whether a selected degree of correlation is present between the laboratory testing data and the simulation exists. Mechanical properties of the formation rock are obtained from the simulation data when the selected degree of correlation exists between the laboratory testing data and the simulation data.

Systems and methods for determining mechanical properties of materials using SENB testing

Methods and systems for increasing normalized production rate of an oil and gas reservoir by optimizing a pressure drawdown of a subsurface formation are disclosed. The methods include determining permeability of the subsurface formation as a function of effective stresses, determining a stress sensitivity factor for the core sample, upscaling the sensitive stress factor, determining the optimum pressure drawdown for the subsurface formation, and controlling the pressure drawdown in a field operation such that it does not exceed the optimum pressure drawdown for the subsurface formation.

Methods and systems for determining optimum pressure drawdown in a production well for a shale gas reservoir

Systems and methods for determining shear failure of a rock formation are disclosed. The method includes receiving, by a processor, a plurality of parameters related to physical properties of the rock formation, applying the plurality of parameters to a predetermined failure criterion, and determining shear failure of the rock formation based on the failure criterion. In some embodiments the failure criterion is a modified Hoek-Brown failure criterion that takes into consideration an intermediate principal stress, and the difference between normal stresses and an average confining stress.

Systems and methods for predicting shear failure of a rock formation

A method for setting a wellbore casing in a subterranean formation is described. The method includes: drilling a test wellbore in the subterranean formation; generating a density profile of a plurality of geological layers above a salt formation in the subterranean formation based on observations from the test wellbore; calculating an overburden stress imposed on the salt formation by weight of overlying formation based on the density profile of the plurality of geological layers; performing creep mechanical behavior tests on core samples from the salt formation to generate a strain-time curve for the salt formation; calibrating multiple analytical creep models with mechanical properties of the salt data generated by the creep mechanical behavior tests; implementing a wellbore closure model based on a best-fit analytical model and mechanical properties of the multiple analytical creep models; drilling a well; and setting a casing through the salt formation.

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Katy, TX, United States of America

Yanhui Han