In a fracturing campaign of three wells at Field X, a new unconventional proppant technology—a rod-shaped proppant—was used. The rod-shaped proppant is a high-strength ceramic proppant with an unconventional rod shape that has the unique benefit of delivering increased proppant-pack conductivities, higher and cleaner fracture length, and improved proppant-flowback control. After 6 months of production, all fractured wells in which the rod-shaped proppant was used delivered, on average, 25% higher oil per net pay compared with offset wells fractured with conventional proppant.
Introduction
Field X is a mature-waterflood field in the Central Sumatra basin. Currently, production is approximately 17,000 BOPD; most production comes from Formation Y, and a much smaller contribution comes from the shallower, but tighter, Formation X1 (reservoir characteristics are provided in the complete paper). A reservoir study for further field development of Formation X1 in Field X was conducted in 1999. On the basis of this study, it was determined that the recovery factor of Formation X1 was low (single-digit recovery). Given this low recovery factor, several options were considered to develop the remaining reserves better.
