Application of 'unified fracture design' to higher permeability reservoirs

Hydraulic Fracturing treatment design as classically used in the industry is based on the optimization of fracture geometry. However, the Unified Fracture Design (UFD) concept, allows hydraulic fracturing treatment design based on dimensionless fracture conductivity; with the best variable to characterize the size of fracture being the volume of proppant placed in the 'pay' rather than length and width, as the fracture geometry that would maximize production is unique for a particular mass or volume of proppant. The purpose of this work was to design an effective and economical hydraulic fracturing job using UFD by selecting the amount of proppant that results in optimal treatment sizing, at which the Net Present Value (NPV) of incremental revenue balanced by treatment cost is maximum. This included selecting the appropriate proppant number which would give the best productivity index while the chosen proppant volume is placed according to the optimal dimensionless fracture conductivity. Without going into the details of fracture mechanics, fluid rheology and reservoir engineering, the fracture treatment was designed by taking basic decisions in an iterative manner through an in-house developed program that can be used for any sort of reservoir. A real field case with medium permeability was chosen for optimization which resulted in a very high NPV value with the selected proppant design. This work has great scope in designing hydraulic fracturing job using different kinds of proppants for different permeability formations, not restricting the applicability to low permeability formations.