Evaluation of Multi-Stage Acid Fracturing Treatment in Deep Carbonate Formation

Abstract

Acid fracturing techniques have been widely practiced to enhance well productivity and ultimate recovery for low permeability carbonate reservoirs. The success of an acid fracturing treatment is evaluated based on the productivity-index ratio. The evaluation of an acid fracturing treatment requires a comprehensive understanding of well completion methods, fracture propagation, acid fracture conductivity prediction, and post-treatment well performance analysis.

In this study, an integrated evaluation approach is developed to link all these processes in order to have a valid evaluation of a horizontal well multi-stage acid fracturing treatment. The model includes evaluation of the well completion methods, fracture propagation modeling, acid fracture modeling, and post-fractured well production prediction. A field treatment is evaluated in this study to illustrate the work procedure of this approach and its capability to handle field application.

From this study, it is concluded that one can apply the integrated approach developed from this research to evaluate an actual field multi-stage acid fracturing treatment, and help engineers to make better decisions.