Data-Mining Approach Evaluates Production Performance in the Permian Basin

Abstract

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper URTeC 198192, “Production Performance Evaluation From Stimulation and Completion Parameters in the Permian Basin: Data-Mining Approach,” by Mustafa A. Al-Alwani, SPE, and Shari Dunn-Norman, SPE, Missouri University of Science and Technology, and Larry K. Britt, SPE, NSI Fracturing, et al., prepared for the 2019 SPE/AAPG/SEG Asia Pacific Unconventional Resources Technology Conference, 18–19 November, Brisbane, Australia. The paper has not been peer reviewed. The complete paper uses 3,782 unconventional horizontal wells to analyze the effect of proppant volume and the length of the perforated lateral on short- and long-term well productivity across the Permian Basin. Tying cumulative production to completion and stimulation practices showed that increasing pumped proppant per well from 5 million to less than 10 million lbm yielded a 34% increase in 5-year cumulative average barrels of oil equivalent (BOE). Raising the pumped proppant per well to 10 million-15 million lbm and 15 million-20 million lbm increased 5-year cumulative BOE from the previous proppant range group to 27% and 18.5%, respectively. Introduction For this study, stimulation chemical data from Permian (Midland) Basin wells were downloaded from FracFocus for all horizontal wells completed and stimulated between 2012 and 2018. The data were then subjected to rigorous cleaning and processing, a process detailed in the complete paper, and then combined with DrillingInfo completion and production parameters. Combining these data provided ample parameters for stimulation, completion, and production data. The objective of the study was to investigate the production performance of Permian Basin wells as a result of different ranges of stimulation and completion parameters. Fig. 1 shows a database representation of the major counties in the Permian Basin with the number of wells in each county. Results and Discussion To substitute for any quantities of produced gas, all production data have been converted to BOE by using the conversion factor of 1 BOE=6 Mcf. The amount of proppant being pumped and the length of the perforated lateral length have been selected to represent the stimulation size and the completion magnitude, respectively.