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.