A Multidisciplinary Study of Stimulation Designs in the Three Forks Formation, ND

Abstract

The Three Forks Formation in the state of North Dakota is one of the main plays with the record of one million barrels a day of hydrocarbon production, recently, combined with the Bakken. Three Forks formation is highly heterogeneous due to the presence of interbedded shale layers. The reservoir properties vary significantly within the basin, which makes the stimulation designs challenging. It’s well understood that to maintain the production, well completion and stimulation designs should be applied in a given field in Williston Basin; in this paper we combined several data sources in a multidisciplinary manner and compared completion design parameters such as: amount of proppant injected and type, fracturing fluid type, using acid, etc. with the goal of improving well productivity. The main objective of this study is to investigate how different fracturing components can impact the production. The production history data was limited to the days after the stimulation. Our investigation is based on proprietary and public data of the Three Forks Formation. We also included the name of each operator active in a single field to make an assessment of how different companies are performing completion and fracturing design compared to production. Introduction In the last decade, the Bakken shale has emerged as a major oil play in North America. Lately, however, more effort has been spent on Three Forks Formation. From across the country, oil companies have been flocking to the Williston Basin to get their shares. These companies have brought along their unique knowledge and experiences. They are constantly testing and refining their methods in order to have the most production out of the Bakken and Three Forks formations. As a result, there is a variety in the way these companies stimulate their wells. Each different approach had produced different result. Some approaches will result in higher production comparing to others. In this study, the focus will be on the Three Forks since it is the “next” formation. The Three Forks Formation was deposited during the late Devonian, in a very shallow and extensive epeiric platform. It is a mud dominated system composed of dolomitic siltstone, claystone and mudstone (Gutierrez et al., 2013). Even though Three Forks is an unconventional play, there are many subsurface structures involved in it, such as dome and anticlines, which form conventional traps throughout the basin. As such, production from these structures should be higher since they benefit from the conventional trap. For a major part, this study devotes to answer two questions: • What are the correlations between different fracing parameters and its corresponding production result? • Does it require higher pressure to open fracture on top of an anticline vs. away from an anticline? URTeC 2015 Page 1941