Achieving Savings in Time-Sensitive Completion Costs: Results from Recent Single-Trip Multizone Frac-Packing Case Histories

Abstract

Abstract With rig costs and other time-sensitive completion costs rising, offshore operators must continually find ways to reduce operating costs while minimizing risk. Frac packing often involves expensive fluids, proppant and equipment. Single-trip multi-zone sand control completion systems are not new to the Gulf of Mexico, but the adaptation of these systems to facilitate frac packing has created new opportunities for the technology. Multi-zone, single-trip completion systems were first used offshore California in the 1980s to reduce completion costs in marginal fields. The initial system design was used successfully in several hundred wells to complete more than 900 zones. In the early 1990s, the system was modified to minimize rig time and reduce formation damage in the Gulf of Mexico by reducing formation exposure time to completion fluids. This paper will review the history of multi-zone, single-trip completion systems and discuss how the systems were adapted to facilitate frac packing, including modifications to allow for high pump rates and large sand or proppant volumes. The paper will also present detailed results of recent applications for several Gulf of Mexico operators that demonstrate the advantages of the technology over more conventional stack-pack completion methods.