REMINDER May 12th, 2022 DGS Luncheon Presentation – Jess Barhaug

Testing XLE For Cost Savings In The DJ Basin: A Fiber Optic Case Study

Jess Barhaug, Great Western Operating Company

Abstract:

Based on the successes of Extreme Limited Entry (XLE) in other basins, Great Western Petroleum (GWP) constructed an experiment design to test XLE in the first zipper group of a two-zipper group pad. The goal was to find a design that would yield the same production, but with less cost. Increasing stage length provides a significant cost saving and with XLE, production should be maintained. Based on the results from zipper one, the best design could then be implemented on the same pad in the second zipper group. This allows for a direct comparison of hydraulic fracturing designs, minimizing geologic impact.

This study was comprised of several datasets with the primary focus being on Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) using wellbore fiber optic cable. An opportunity was seen to not just gather data, but to test the data quality of the latest deployment methods, specifically a pump-down single-use fiber optic cable. This is a cost effective and minimal footprint option for data collection. This project included three acquisition methods for the DAS: 1) a permanent fiber optic line cemented on the outside of the casing, 2) a wireline retrievable fiber optic line, and 3) a pump-down dissolvable single-use fiber, all deployed in three unique wellbores. The permanent fiber optic well was used to compare the uniformity index of different completion designs. This DAS acquisition also provided offset strain and microseismic in the first and second zipper groups. The wireline retrievable fiber optic cable and single-use fiber optic cable deployments provided offset strain and microseismic for the wells in the first zipper group.  High level observations resulting from this project include:

• The data quality associated with the single-use fiber looked comparable in data quality to the other fiber optic deployment methods.
• The Uniformity Index was high for most designs, even with stages as long as 450 ft and cluster spacing as tight as 7 ft.
• Results from the offset strain and microseismic analysis from tighter and more clusters per stage showed less interference than what was seen with our legacy design stages
• RTA shows that compared to a pad with similar well spacing, the production is better with the new hydraulic fracture design

Jessica is a Senior Reservoir Engineer focusing on field studies and data analytics at Great Western Petroleum. Previously, she worked for WPX Energy as a Senior Completions Engineer in the Williston Basin, where Jessica was one of the lead engineers for a completion and spacing optimization program.  As a Completion and Production Engineer at Schlumberger, she worked a variety of technical projects, including the design, execution and evaluation of hydraulic fracturing treatments, rate transient analysis, production history matching and microseismic monitoring and evaluation.  She received her M.S. in Petroleum Engineering and B.S in Environmental Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.