Table Of ContentUnconventional Shale Gas
Development
Lessons Learned
Edited by
ROUZBEH G. MOGHANLOO
MewbourneSchool of Petroleum and Geological Engineering,
The University of Oklahoma,Norman,OK, United States
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List of contributors
Gayan A. Abeykoon
HildebrandDepartment of Petroleum and GeosystemsEngineering,The University of Texas
atAustin, Austin, TX, UnitedStates
Francisco J.Argüelles-Vivas
HildebrandDepartment of Petroleum and GeosystemsEngineering,The University of Texas
atAustin, Austin, TX, UnitedStates
Arash Dahi-Taleghani
John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering,The
PennsylvaniaState University, University Park, PA, United States
Hassan Dehghanpour
DepartmentofCivilandEnvironmentalEngineering,UniversityofAlberta,Edmonton,AB,Canada
Deepak Devegowda
Mewbourne School of Petroleum and GeologicalEngineering, TheUniversity of Oklahoma,
Norman, OK, UnitedStates
Birol Dindoruk
Cullen College of Engineering,Petroleum Engineering, University of Houston, Houston,TX,
United States
Tawfik Elshehabi
Petroleum EngineeringDepartment, University of Wyoming, Laramie,WY, UnitedStates
Yingkun Fu
School of Energy Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, P.R. China;State Key
Laboratoryof Shale Oil and Gas EnrichmentMechanisms and Effective Development, Beijing,
P.R. China; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,University of Alberta,
Edmonton,AB, Canada
Zoya Heidari
TheUniversity of Texas at Austin,Austin, TX, United States
Amirmasoud Kalantari-Dahaghi
Departmentof Chemical and Petroleum Engineering,The University of Kansas, Lawrence,
KS,United States
HamidrezaKarami
Mewbourne School of Petroleum and GeologicalEngineering, TheUniversity of Oklahoma,
Norman, OK, UnitedStates
Lucy Tingwei Ko
Bureau of Economic Geology, TheUniversity of Texas at Austin,Austin, TX, United States
Ademide O. Mabadeje
HildebrandDepartment of Petroleum and GeosystemsEngineering,Cockrell Schoolof
Engineering,The Universityof Texasat Austin, Austin, TX,United States
xiii
xiv Listofcontributors
Mark William McClure
ResFrac Corporation, Palo Alto, CA,United States
Rouzbeh G.Moghanloo
Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering,The Universityof Oklahoma,
Norman,OK, United States
RyosukeOkuno
Hildebrand Departmentof Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, TheUniversity of Texas
at Austin, Austin, TX,United States
Felipe Perez
Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering,The Universityof Oklahoma,
Norman,OK, United States
MichaelJ. Pyrcz
Hildebrand Departmentof Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, Cockrell School of
Engineering,The University of Texas at Austin, Austin,TX, United States;Departmentof
GeologicalSciences, Jackson School of Geosciences, TheUniversity of Texas at Austin,
Austin, TX,United States
Ali Rezaei
Midstream Production Systems,Houston, TX, United States
Raki Sahai
Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering,The Universityof Oklahoma,
Norman,OK, United States
SaeedSalehi
Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering,The Universityof Oklahoma,
Norman,OK, United States
Carl H.Sondergeld
Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering,The Universityof Oklahoma,
Norman,OK, United States
Fnu Suriamin
OklahomaGeologicalSurvey, The Universityof Oklahoma, Norman, OK, UnitedStates
CatalinTeodoriu
Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering,The Universityof Oklahoma,
Norman,OK, United States
Ali Ousseini Tinni
Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering,The Universityof Oklahoma,
Norman,OK, United States
YuxingWu
Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering,The Universityof Oklahoma,
Norman,OK, United States
Mohamed Y. Soliman
CullenCollegeof Engineering, Petroleum Engineering,University of Houston, Houston, TX,
United States
Listofcontributors xv
Hao Yu
State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas ReservoirGeologyand Exploitation, Southwest
Petroleum University, Chengdu,China
Sebastian Zavaleta Villarreal
Mewbourne School of Petroleum and GeologicalEngineering, TheUniversity of Oklahoma,
Norman, OK, UnitedStates
Preface
Shale gas development has radically changed the natural gas market in North America.
Given the abundance of natural gas at historically low prices having become a possibil-
ity in the United States owing to technological advances, the presence of operators
with sufficient risk appetite, and favorable monetary policies, as a result, the produc-
tion of natural gas in the United States has seen an increasing trend for the past decade
and had peaked at about 960 billion cubic meters in 2019. This bolstered domestic
production has turned the country into a powerful player in global natural gas mar-
kets. Consequently, the United States has risen to become the world's top exporter
from being in the lower 48 countries in just six years after its first LNG cargo was
exported in 2016.
This book is an attempt to summarize the technological advances realized through
shale gas revolution. The book has been specifically designed for asset managers, petro-
leum engineers, shale gas stakeholders, and graduate students who would like to learn
more about the different aspects of and challenges associated with the production of
natural gas from shale gas resources.
Chapter 1 delves into the details of asset management issues and delineates upon
the reserves reporting for shale reservoirs. Chapter 2 addresses geological characteriza-
tion covering topics such as heterogeneity and organic chemistry of shale gas and ends
with case studies from multiple shale plays. Chapter 3 provides a comprehensive
review of well construction and casing fatigue in multifractured horizontal wells.
Chapter 4 is specifically dedicated to well control challenges in horizontal wells and
discusses operational complications that occur in shale gas wells. Chapter 5 is devoted
to well integrity and wellbore stability issues and presents stability of wells in
Tuscaloosa shale plays as the case study.
Chapter 6 highlights the challenges in formation evaluation of organic-rich mud
rocks and goes into the details of recent advances to overcome them. Chapter 7
reviews interpretation methods used for diagnostic fracture injection tests and explains
the author’s preferred approach. Chapter 8 outlines a new technique based upon
wavelet analysis evaluating a fracture network in the system with some examples from
Utah’s FORGE project. Chapter 9 elaborates proppant placement and the challenges
associated with proppant transport in complex fracture networks.
Chapter 10 presents geomechanical modeling covering topics such as fracture prop-
agation and casing deformation. Chapter 11 introduces a new decline model that can
successfully describe water production during flow back. Chapter 12 outlines the
implementation of molecular dynamics simulation to describe fluids distribution in
xvii
xviii Preface
organic matter. Chapter 13 provides a comprehensive review of recent efforts for wet-
tability alteration in liquid-rich shale plays. Chapter 14 elaborates on the scale depen-
dency of petrophysical properties of shale samples.
Chapter 15 addresses the challenges associated with fluid lifting and the practical
treatments suggested for shale systems. Chapter 16 summarizes production data analysis
developed for shale gas wells. Chapter 17 delineates on the applications of artificial
intelligence and machine learning algorithms in building meaningful relations between
experimental data and production performance. Chapter 18 unveils a new screening
protocol for evaluation of gas injection experiments conducted to enhance liquid pro-
duction and discusses the Eagle Ford case study. Chapter 19 deals with sampling bias
in data-driven approaches used in shale gas development and introduces a new work-
flow for debiasing spatially clustered samples.
Contents
Listofcontributors xiii
Preface xvii
1. Fielddevelopment and asset management 1
RakiSahai
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Background 3
1.2.1 Howwegottowherewearetoday? 4
1.3 Conventionalversusunconventionalreservoirs 8
1.4 Assetmanagement 10
1.4.1 Fielddevelopmentplanforshaleplays 14
1.4.2 Roleoftechnologiesinunconventionaldevelopment 17
1.4.3 Shaledevelopmentchallenges 19
1.5 Reservesreportingforshalereservoirs 20
1.5.1 Proved(1P)and3Preserves 21
1.5.2 Estimatedultimaterecoveryforecastingtechniques 24
1.5.3 Stochasticreservebooking 26
1.5.4 Reserves-basedlending 27
1.6 Futureprospectsofshaledevelopment 29
References 29
2. Geological characterization ofunconventional shale-gas reservoirs 33
FnuSuriaminandLucyTingweiKo
2.1 Thehistoryofshalegas 34
2.2 Geologicalevaluationsofshalegasprospects 35
2.3 Proximatecontrolonaccumulationoforganic-matter-richshale 37
2.4 Definitionofshale/mudstone/mudrock 40
2.5 Depositionalenvironmentsoforganic-matter-richshale 40
2.5.1 Nonmarinedepositionalsettings 41
2.5.2 Marinedepositionalsettings 43
2.5.3 Transitionaldepositionalsettings 46
2.6 Organicgeochemistryofgasshale 46
2.7 Othergeologicalcharacterizationsofsuccessfulshalegasplays 50
2.8 Heterogeneityofshale-gasreservoirs 50
2.9 Diageneticimpactonshale-gasreservoirs 51
2.10 Distributionofshale-gasreservoirsworldwide 52
v
vi Contents
2.11 Casestudies:TheMiddleDevonianMarcellusFormationandtheAppalachianBasin 52
2.11.1 Organicmatter,totalorganicmatter,andthermalmaturity 57
2.11.2 KeyaspectsoftheMarcellusFormation 58
2.12 Geoenvironmentalchallengesinthedevelopmentofshale-gasreservoirs 60
2.13 Conclusions 63
References 63
3. Construction and completion of multifractured horizontalwells 71
CatalinTeodoriu
3.1 Definitions 71
3.2 Wellconstruction 71
3.3 Thewellboretubulars 81
3.4 Torotateornottorotate:theunconventionalwelldilemma! 85
3.5 Casingfatigueinunconventionalwells 87
3.5.1 Fatigueinducedwhilerunningthecasing 87
3.5.2 Drilling-inducedfatigue 88
3.5.3 Casingdrilling-inducedfatigue 88
3.5.4 Casingfatigueinunconventionalwells 88
3.5.5 Internalpressure(cid:1)inducedfatigue 88
3.5.6 Temperaturevariationinducedfatigue 88
3.5.7 Casing(cid:1)cementsystemfatigue 89
3.5.8 Wellboretubularstestingandqualification 89
3.5.9 Specimengeometry 89
3.5.10 Loadenvelope 90
3.5.11 Makeandbreaktests 90
3.5.12 Baking(aging)test 91
3.5.13 Leakdetection 91
3.6 AnOCTGselectionapproachforunconventionalwells 93
3.7 Wellborecompletionofhorizontalunconventionalwells 97
3.8 Environmentalaspectsofwellconstructionandcompletion 101
References 102
4. Well controlchallenges in unconventional shaleplays 105
TawfikElshehabi
4.1 Introduction 105
4.2 Wellcontrolinunconventionalshaleplays 106
4.3 Wellcontrolphilosophy 106
4.4 Wellcontrolcomplicationsinhorizontalwells 109
4.5 Wellcontrolchallengesinnonaqueousdrillingfluids 113
4.6 Inclinedupwardlateralschallenges 117
4.7 Kickswhilerunningcasingorlinerschallenges 118
Contents vii
4.8 Factorsaffectingwellcontrolpracticesinhorizontalwells 120
4.9 Lessonslearned 122
References 123
5. Wellbore/borehole stability in shale formation 125
YuxingWuandSaeedSalehi
5.1 Overview 125
5.2 Introduction 125
5.3 Geomechanicalevaluationofwellstabilityinshaleformation 126
5.3.1 Mechanicalstressaroundwellbore 127
5.3.2 Mudwindowestimation 130
5.3.3 In-situstressestimation 132
5.4 Mud(cid:1)shaleinteractionaffectingwellstabilityinshaleformation 134
5.4.1 Strengthdegradationinshaleformation 135
5.4.2 Swellinganddispersioninshaleformation 136
5.5 Wellintegrityinshaleformation 138
5.5.1 Hydraulicdegradation 138
5.5.2 Mechanicaldegradation 142
5.6 AcasestudyinTuscaloosaMarineShale 145
5.6.1 TuscaloosaMarineShalewellborestability 145
5.6.2 TuscaloosaMarineShalewellboreintegrity 147
5.7 Summary 148
Reference 149
6. Advances in formationevaluation ofshalesystems 155
ZoyaHeidari
6.1 Overviewofchallengesinformationevaluationoforganic-richmudrocks 156
6.1.1 Composition 156
6.1.2 Rockfabric 158
6.1.3 Geochemistry 159
6.1.4 Solid(cid:1)fluidinterfacialinteractions 161
6.1.5 Groundtruthmeasurements 161
6.1.6 Upscaling 162
6.2 Advancedformationevaluationinorganic-richmudrocks 162
6.2.1 Reservesevaluation 163
6.2.2 Wettability 166
6.2.3 Cationexchangecapacity 171
6.2.4 Mechanicalproperties 173
6.3 Recapandthewayforward 176
References 178
