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Honing in on Optimal Well Spacing

Alireza Haghighat

Senior Technical Advisor

Raoul LeBlanc

Vice President, North American Unconventional Oil and Gas

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Based on IHSM opportunity screening, Susquehanna county has the highest

productivity in the Marcellus shale. But how many wells should be drilled?

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Within Susquehanna county , an undeveloped area was selected for development

study and evaluation

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Geology and Completion data acquired from Kingdom software. The average

values will be used for modeling and optimization.

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Proprietary well data(rate/pressure) was used to perform Rate Transient Analysis

and estimate Well/Reservoir characteristics. Then numerical simulation was built

and history matched to represent reservoir behavior in the development area.

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Using geological data, Type Well and RTA results, a numerical model was

designed to be a representative well in the development area for optimization

studies.

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A section of 4000 by 6000ft was considered for development. 4 different scenarios

for well spacing were assumed in multi-well model.

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Fracture Half-length varied from 350 to 600ft. This corresponds to various proppant

loading from 1500 to 4000 #/ft (6 scenarios).

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Half-length:350ft

Half-length:500ft

Half-length:600ft

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33 Simulation runs covered all the combinations between well spacing, proppant

loading and number of fractures. The optimized development plan is 1200’ well spacing, 4000#/ft and 50 fractures.

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Best

Scenario

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EUR vs Spacing and Proppant Loading Heat Map

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Best

Scenario

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Economic analysis was performed for all the scenarios. Higher Pad NPVs are

achieved by higher well spacing, medium proppant loading and number of clusters.

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Best Scenarios

Best Scenarios

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Pad NPV trends versus well spacing, proppant loading and number of clusters.

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Optimum Solution

Optimum Solution Optimum Solution

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Conclusions

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• Well interference depends on a number of critical variables:

>The local geology and rock properties

>Well design and landing zone

>Completion design – especially stage spacing and frac intensity

>Timing of production versus other wells (co-developed vs child wells)

>Incremental costs as well complexity and intensity increase

• The answer to the question of optimal spacing is a curve of possible combinations, not a single point

• Subsurface optimization must then be further refined to determine the

economically optimal design and spacing at the well or pad level

• Proper integration of all the relevant factors can now be accomplished in

minutes using new algorithms and the power of the cloud, rather than hours