An Operator spied on their neighbour’s completion design and began conducting their own Deeprop® trials in the Woodford SCOOP.
The Operator tried to normalize their study for geology, well construction and completion design.
It took 90-120 days for the wells treated with Deeprop® to begin outperforming the control wells in the study.
The production rates of the wells treated with Deeprop® appear to decline slower, and a much flatter GOR was observed.
In this blog series we will explore the results from a trial an operator conducted in the South Central Oklahoma Oil Province (SCOOP) – Woodford Shale. The operator’s design consisted of 4.6 tonnes of 100 mesh, and 145 tonnes of 40/70. This operator was monitoring the results from Deeprop trials being conducted by a competitor in the area and began conducting Deeprop trials of their own. This small operator eventually began incorporating Deeprop into their completion designs and subsequently sold the field.
Geology:
The Woodford shale is a laminated, brittle, silica-rich shale play that produces gas, condensate, and oil. The Woodford SCOOP is a world-class source rock that is oil-prone type 2 kerogen. The shale has good horizontal and poor vertical continuity showing the need for hydraulic fracturing. This small operator surmised that they could enhance their production be incorporating a highly permeable 400-500 mesh proppant into their completion design.
Trial Methodology:
The intention of the trial design was the minimize the effect of geological and well construction variations on the interpretation of the trial results. The operator conducted an extensive logging program and determined that the geology in the trial area was consistent for normalization purposes; however, one control well was identified as having a higher reservoir quality and was expected to produce the best.
The operator maintained a consistent well construction program with similar lateral lengths, well orientations, and stage spacing. The operator also maintained a consistent frac design, with the only difference being the addition of 8,200lbs of Deeprop® per stage in the Deeprop® test wells.
Initial Production Results (30 & 60 Day):
The initial production results from the wells treated with Deeprop® do not appear to provide any upside versus the control wells. However, as mentioned in previous blogs; the upside isn’t seen in the initial 30-day or even 60-day production results, but over the long term producing life of the well. Deeprop® wells are characterized by slower production decline rates, not higher initial production rates.
90-Day Production Results:
After 90-days the cumulative production of 2 of the wells treated with Deeprop® is higher than then the control wells, while the trend of the third Deeprop® well does not appear to be overtaking the best producing control wells. Again, I want to emphasize that the initial production rates of the Deeprop® wells were not significantly different from the control wells. The animation below shows the production rates of the Deeprop® wells versus the control wells. What the animation makes it clear that the production decline rates of the Deeprop® wells is slower than the control wells.
Production decline rates of the Deeprop® wells versus control wells.
6-Month Production Results:
After 150 days on production the two best producers are the Deeprop® wells by significant margins. The third Deeprop® well is now on trend to overtake the highest producing control wells over the next 30-60 days. Unfortunately, this is the extent of the data that was shared with us for this series of trials.
6-Month cumulative production results.
Discussion
The results from this Deeprop® trial in the SCOOP mirror the trial conducted in the Delaware basin discussed in the previous blog. The operator conducted tests in area where the geology was identified to be relatively homogenous for normalization purposes. The well construction between the control wells and the Deeprop® was designed to minimize variability and the completion program was kept relatively consistent.
The results show that the Deeprop® wells do not outperform the control wells during the early production period of 30 to 60 days. What characterizes wells treated with Deeprop®, are the slower production decline rates. After 90-days the cumulative production of the two Deeprop® wells surpassed the control wells with the highest initial production rates – After 120-days the remaining Deeprop® well was on trend to outperform the control wells.
There was one other observation made, the very flat gas-oil-ratio in the Deeprop® control wells. One explanation could be a more efficient use of reservoir pressure in the wells treated with Deeprop®, possibly associated with improve cluster efficiency, or erosion of near wellbore tortuosity.
After this study, the operator began incorporating Deeprop® as a standard part of their completions program until the sale of this asset.
In the next blog I will go through another series of trials that were conducted in the SCOOP, where the operator initially utilized Deeprop® to reduce surface treating pressure to allow the effective placement of proppant. However, after a couple of years on production the operator noticed a difference in well performance!
If you’d like to learn more about how DEEPROP® can enhance your proppant placement and provide incremental production, please get in touch with me or send an email to
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