Modern Fracturing - Enhancing Natural Gas Production

Natural gas is rapidly emerging as a premier fuel for the world economy with markedly increasing trans-national trade. With proven reserves far exceeding those for crude oil, natural gas is likely to be around for centuries. This is a book about enhancing natural gas production using one of the most important and widespread well completion technologies hydraulic fracturing. The book addresses the way that natural gas is produced from reservoirs and then describes diagnostic techniques that can pinpoint whether the well is producing as it should or whether intervention should be undertaken, which is the central theme of this book. Hydraulic fracturing is introduced as the solution of choice, showing the idiosyncratic nature of natural gas wells compared to oil wells. Subsequent chapters address important peripheral issues whose successful or failed resolution may affect the well performance with equal or even more serious consequences than the fracture treatment itself. These issues include well completions and the extremely important well-to-reservoir (and fracture) connectivity. Moving onwards, two chapters address the materials for fracturing: fluids and proppants. Their appropriate selection is essential to the successful execution of any treatment. The execution itself is the subject of the following chapter, and practical issues are addressed therein. Then some modern applications are described. One chapter deals with fracturing horizontal wells, increasingly an important option among reservoir exploitation strategies. Not only new well architecture but also newer reservoir targets are opening up, and natural gas demand points towards unconventional sources, namely coalbed methane (CBM), shale gas and very low-permeability formations. Technology makes their exploitation possible, and this is the subject another chapter. Finally, two issues round out the book: How fracturing is employed in the full development of reservoirs; and how mature fields, a mainstay of the developed world such as the United States and Europe, can be revitalized through this process.

Michael J. Economides is a professor at the Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston, and the managing partner of a petroleum engineering and petroleum strategy consulting firm. His interests include petroleum production and petroleum management with a particular emphasis on natural gas, natural gas transportation, LNG, CNG and processing; advances in process design of very complex operations, and economics and geopolitics. He is also the editor-in-chief of the Energy Tribune. Previously he was the Samuel R. Noble Professor of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University and served as chief scientist of the Global Petroleum Research Institute (GPRI). Prior to joining the faculty at Texas A&M University, Economides was director of the Institute of Drilling and Production at the Leoben Mining University in Austria. Before that, he worked in a variety of senior technical and managerial positions with a major petroleum services company. Publications include authoring or co-authoring 14 professional textbooks and books, including The Color Of Oil, and more than 200 journal papers and articles. Economides does a wide range of industrial consulting, including major retainers by national oil companies at the country level and by Fortune 500 companies. He has had professional activities in over 70 countries. Tony Martin is business development manager for international stimulation at BJ Services Company. Since graduating from Imperial College, London, with an honors degree in mechanical engineering and a master's degree in petroleum engineering, Martin has spent 17 years in the oil industry and has completed engineering assignments around the world. Martin's primary interest has been hydraulic fracturing and stimulation, and he has been involved in production enhancement projects in more than 25 countries. He teaches fracturing, acidizing and sand control both in-house and externally. A constant theme in this teaching is the need to de-mystify the world of hydraulic fracturing, in an attempt to make the process more accessible and less intimidating. He is the author or co-author of numerous SPE papers and has served on the technical committees for several SPE events. He is also the author of BJ Services Hydraulic Fracturing Manual.