(25) BEST OF BOTH WORLDS FROM PROPPANT DISTRIBUTION TO FRACTURE

Horizontal drilling and the need for effective completion techniques has given birth to a wide variety of solutions in North American oil and gas plays. For many operators, it has become a top priority to optimize proppant distribution using buoyancy enhancer additives and to achieve fracture diversion with clean solutions that do not require intervention. At the heart of these initiatives is the Permian Basin, which is being revitalized through the use of intelligent completion technologies to make those priorities a reality.

This paper proposes two solutions that can be customized for an integrated fluid system that helps improve proppant distribution, deepen proppant penetration within the complex fracture network, increase proppant pack volume, and increase maximum proppant concentration that can be placed. By improving proppant placement and increasing the fracture volume occupied by proppant, operators can enhance conductivity of the fracture network, resulting in improvements to initial and long-term production.