Prevention of fracture propagation to control drill-in fluid loss in fractured tight gas reservoir

Abstract

Developed fractures are beneficial for the economic and efficient development of tight gas reservoir. But they will lead to drill-in fluid loss and induce serious formation damage. Preventing natural fractures propagation is the key to control drill-in fluid loss in the fractured reservoir. Plugging and sealing the fracture loss channel with loss control material (LCM) can improve the fracture propagation pressure (FPP) effectively. However, the main parameters that affect the improved FPP are not clear. To our best knowledge, few papers have been published on the comprehensive parametric analysis for improved FPP to select reasonable LCM and control drill-in loss in fractured tight gas reservoir. In this paper, we develop a mathematic model to analyze the parameters that affect the FPP after plugging. Laboratory experiment is conducted to select reasonable LCM based on the parametric analysis. Study results show that formation stress anisotropy, elastic modulus, fracture length, fracture pressure and plugging location are the main parameters that impact the improved FPP. According to the analysis results, maximum plugging pressure and total loss volume before sealing are proposed as the key indexes for LCM selection. Experiment results show that reasonable combination of rigid granule, fiber and elastic particle can create a synergy effect to effectively control drill-in fluid loss in fracture tight gas reservoir.