High Performance Computing of Completion and Near-Wellbore Erosion

The production from oil and gas wells is strongly affected by the network of fractures made in the reservoir by hydraulic fracturing and pre-existing natural fractures. Hydraulic and other boundary conditions often favor the predominant growth of one fracture at the expense of growing a number of fractures. This biasing worsens due to erosion of the perforations in the casing and surrounding materials. This nonuniform stimulation, substantially reduces the recovery of hydrocarbons. However, to date, the impact of erosion has often been neglected or under addressed. The consequences of sub-optimal hydraulic fracturing can be millions of dollars in operational expenditures compounded by even larger future losses associated with impaired recoveries and diminished reserves. The goal of this project is to develop an HPC solution to model perforation erosion and the resulting pressure drop. A dual scale modeling approach will be utilized, thereby allowing fundamental “first principals" modeling at the micro-scale to be applied at the macro-scale in order to capture the aggregate effects of erosion. The model will require no additional experimental data besides material properties. The software will automate the calculation of erosion and flow characteristics, allowing for application in reservoir/hydraulic-fracturing simulators, with the end goal of optimizing fracturing treatments and diversion agent strategies. The software will be capable of exploring a wide variety of erosion scenarios and ultimately helping to select the best solution to optimize production. The final product of the proposed work, available following a Phase II effort, will be a turn-key, cloud-based, easy-to-use, computationally efficient solution for simulating erosion within a large reservoir/fracturing framework. The customers of the SaaS HPC hydraulic fracturing/reservoir model with erosion capabilities will be engineers and well owners, looking to optimize production and recovery, by optimizing the underground fracture network from hydraulic fracturing operations. The market will consist of end-users working with both newly drilled wells as well as remedial work for refracturing wells with prematurely declining production. A relatively low cost per simulation and the strong possibility of enhanced well productivity and recovery make an excellent customer value proposition for the model.