Subsurface Dynamics in collaboration with Chris Clarkson from the University of Calgary will present a new paper at the 2025 SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference, February 6-8, Woodlands, Texas. The paper titled “New Hybrid Workflow for Field Development Planning and Execution: Early Time Fracs vs Long Term Production”.
It introduces an innovative hybrid workflow to optimize field development in unconventional reservoirs.
This workflow aims to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of asset development by integrating early-time fracture data with long-term production data, addressing limitations found in previous methodologies.
The hybrid workflow initially combined field data such as geomechanics, flowback, and short-term production information to reduce uncertainties and execution times in asset development.
However, it faced challenges due to its lack of incorporation of long-term production data and variability in fluid properties across assets, which limited its applicability.
The current study extends this workflow by integrating long-term production data, which involves the development of correlations and asset maps to benchmark and improve completion design selection and performance.
Key components of the enhanced hybrid workflow include:
- Asset maps of effective stress and permeability.
- A fracture area correlation (FAC) to relate effective stress to fracture area.
- A (short-term) normalized rate correlation (NRC) that connects short-term production rates to the FBA-derived linear flow parameter.
- A long-term production correlation (LTPC) that relates extended production data to the FBA-derived linear flow parameter.
By utilizing a mass-flow rate approach, this workflow allows for effective comparisons of productivity from wells with different fluid types and mobile formation water production.
The study emphasizes the importance of integrating flowback analysis (FBA), with multidisciplinary methods to improve development efficiency and performance in both short-term and long-term contexts.
The authors illustrate the effectiveness of this enhanced hybrid workflow through a case study involving a high-profile asset in a prolific North American unconventional reservoir. This asset displays considerable variability in fluid properties, geomechanics, and productivity.
By connecting initial reservoir and fluid properties to long-term performance, operators can better achieve target frac and production performance while minimizing capital and G&A costs.
The introduction highlights the technical complexities and capital intensity inherent in developing modern unconventional reservoirs, necessitating the adaptation of integrated workflows.
Traditional workflows involve a multidisciplinary approach, combining static modeling, hydraulic fracturing modeling, and dynamic simulation conducted in an iterative fashion. Despite their success, these workflows often encounter significant challenges, such as high execution costs, limited calibration data availability, and the lengthy validation process that can delay decision-making.
FBA has gained traction as a cost-effective method for providing rapid diagnostics and calibration data post-frac. The paper discusses how FBA can be used to assess issues in field development, guide optimization efforts, and provide crucial diagnostics for high-impact capital decisions. The authors have previously demonstrated various advanced applications of FBA that can be integrated into existing workflows to accelerate learning from post-frac data.
The study further elaborates on the limitations of the previously proposed hybrid workflow, which did not sufficiently account for fluid property variability and long-term production data. The current extension aims to address these limitations through the use of FBA-derived parameters to inform hydraulic fracture design and estimate well performance early in the well’s life.
In the theory and methods section, a standardized FBA workflow is presented, which includes diagnostics to confirm data quality, analyze flow regimes, and history-match multi-phase flowback data. This provides a comprehensive understanding of key fracture and reservoir parameters.
The authors emphasize the utility of high-resolution flowback data in estimating these parameters, providing a reliable foundation for long-term production correlations. The components of the hybrid workflow including asset base maps and physics-based correlations are also discussed in detail.
The case study provided validates the FBA-derived parameters against long-term rate-transient analysis (RTA), illustrating strong correlations between FBA-derived frac and reservoir parameters, and those derived from long-term production data.
The results demonstrate the potential of FBA to provide accurate and timely estimates of fracture and reservoir properties, highlighting its value in unconventional resource development. The results of the comparison are shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 – Validation of FBA results again long-term conventional RTA for two pads in the study area: a/b) Fracture Area; and b/c) Matrix Permeability.
Application of the enhanced hybrid development workflow is also provided, with a focus on the correlation between FBA-derived linear flow parameter and long-term productivity. The Normalized Rate Correlation (NRC) at 30-days and Long-Term Production Correlation (LTPC) at 180-days are shown in Figure 2. The paper shows these correlations at multiple points within the well life, up until 2-years.
Figure 2 – Correlation between FBA-derived linear flow parameter and productivity: a) Normalized Rate Correlation (NRC); and b) Long-Term Production Correlation (LTPC, 180 days)
The case study offers valuable insights into the factors driving productivity at different stages of a well’s life. The results indicate that the total stimulated area, and to a lesser extent, formation permeability near the hydraulic fractures (often enhanced by the hydraulic fracture treatment), are the primary drivers of productivity within the first 6 months of production.
Beyond this period, other factors such as far-field matrix permeability, cluster interference (cluster spacing), well interference/communication (well spacing), and (possibly) fracture degradation emerge as the main influencers of relative productivity.
In conclusion, the paper underscores the significance of the enhanced hybrid workflow in improving field development planning and execution.
By integrating FBA with long-term production data, operators can optimize asset development strategies, enhance productivity, and reduce costs. This comprehensive approach addresses the challenges faced in unconventional reservoirs and offers a pathway for more effective resource management.
The authors propose future enhancements to the workflow, including normalization of productivity to account for well interference and the incorporation of economic analysis to evaluate completion design modifications.
