Michael Conway, STIM-Lab Inc.
The economically successful exploitation of oil and gas resources has become more and more difficult to achieve as the quality of the reservoirs available for exploration have declined. In the last decade much of the activity on-shore in the lower 48 states has concentrated on previously by-passed lower quality reservoirs and in intensive in-field drilling programs in mature fields. Tertiary recovery projects have been emphasized but typically do not compete with well conceived primary production projects. Under these marginal economic conditions, the implementation of optimum completion practices will often make the difference between economic success and failure. The purpose of this paper is first to relate several well histories to demonstrate some important observations about the influence of completion parameters on well productivity. Secondly, it will demonstrate the role of laboratory studies in optimizing completion practices. Finally, it will emphasize the need to fully understand the necessity of using laboratory tests, and ensuring that the tests employed can provide field implementable answers and not just laboratory data from routine tests.