Hydraulic integrity analysis

Abstract

An economical process in which cement sheath integrity, perforation cluster spacing and frac plug integrity can be assessed for every frac stage, potentially leading to improvements in stimulation, completion, cementing and drilling practices. It is based on analyzing wellbore pressure responses occurring at key segments of the wireline pump-down and perforating operation and correlating the results among multiple frac stages and wells in a field or play. A special requirement is that the frac ball (ball check) is inserted in the frac plug and pumped to seat prior to performing perforating operations. A complementary benefit of this process is that selectively establishing injectivity in the most distant perforation cluster can be used to establish inhibited HCl acid (wireline acid) coverage across all perforation intervals for uniform reduction in near-wellbore tortuosity.