Extreme overbalanced perforating/stimulation is a promising emerging technology for improving the completion of oil and gas wells. Commercially available software tools are not available to rigorously describe this completion process or to provide a theoretically sound design. Consequently, current applications of the technology are occasionally ineffective, frequently sub-optimal, and improvements are based on expensive field trial and error methods. Commercial computer software will be developed to simulate the physical processes that occur in the completion process; thereby enhancing the design, optimization, and evaluation of extreme overbalanced techniques. During Phase 1, laboratory experimental data will be collected to describe the change in wellbore rock mechanical properties caused by perforating. This data will be incorporated into existing software to more realistically describe formation conditions at the critical moment of fracture initiation. In Phase II, field testing and associated data collection will be used to calibrateand refine program performance.
Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: The ability to provide a detailed design and to describe the well's post stimulation condition should greatly accelerate industry acceptance of this promising new, but unfamiliar, technology. The product should ultimately play a role similar to that of currently available software which is used tosimulate traditional hydraulic fracturing techniques.
