Stimulation Results and Completion Implications from the Consortium Multi-well Project in the North Dakota Bakken Shale

Abstract

Abstract Stimulation Results and Completion Implications from the Consortium Multi-well Project in the North Dakota Bakken Shale After a great deal of success with Bakken open hole horizontal completions in Richland County, Montana between 2002 and 2005, operators began to move to the more aerially extensive, yet heterogeneous North Dakota side of the Bakken play in the Williston Basin. However, the early results in the North Dakota Bakken were much more variable than the Richland County Bakken wells. With the huge resource at stake in North Dakota, it was realized that better understanding of the nature of the formation's transmissibility, completion, and stimulation efficiency could shorten the learning curve on the economic exploitation of this important oil resource. For this reason a consortium was formed with seven operators, a major service company, the state of North Dakota, and the DOE to drill and complete three science wells. Extensive vertical and horizontal log and core data were collected in these wells. Two wells were completed and one well was utilized as a monitoring well. During the stimulation several seismic arrays were deployed to map out the micro seismic events, including the largest seismic array ever deployed in a horizontal well. In addition, multiple radioactive isotope (RA) and fluid chemical tagging were employed. This paper presents some of the results of this project and the completion analysis that was done with this data as well as other released data in the Williston Basin. In addition, some conclusions are drawn on the nature of fracture initiation along the wellbore and an attempt is made to provide some insight to the completion optimization.