Low Profile Diverters for Hydraulic Fracturing
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Solution Overview
Problem
The petroleum industry faces challenges in achieving uniform distribution of frac fluid and sand during hydraulic fracturing in horizontal wells, leading to inefficient stimulation and increased costs due to the need for multiple stages, which can result in partial or unequal stimulation of perforations.
Innovation Solution
The use of low profile diverters, which are designed to temporarily seal perforations during fracturing, allowing frac fluid and sand to be redirected to less stimulated areas, thereby reducing the number of frac stages required and ensuring more even distribution along the wellbore.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If multiple frac stages are used to stimulate horizontal wells, then uniform distribution of frac fluid and sand can be achieved, but the number of stages increases leading to higher costs and complexity
Solution Approach 1:
Ball sealers are introduced as intermediary devices that temporarily seal perforations during frac operations. These sealers act as mediators to redirect frac fluid and sand to less stimulated areas, enabling uniform distribution without requiring multiple separate frac stages. The ball sealers are pumped into the wellbore along with the frac fluid and automatically position themselves at perforations needing stimulation.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts the stimulation process by introducing ball sealers that can move and position themselves during the frac operation. The sealers transition from being passive to active components that respond to flow conditions, automatically sealing perforations that have received sufficient fluid and redirecting flow to areas needing stimulation, thereby achieving uniform distribution in a single stage.
2Manufacturing precision
If ball sealers are used to seal perforations, then frac fluid can be redirected to less stimulated areas, but the ball sealers must withstand high pressure differential
Solution Approach 1:
The ball sealers are designed with specific physical parameters optimized for high-pressure environments. Their material properties, geometric dimensions, and structural configurations are carefully selected to withstand the high pressure differentials generated during frac operations. The sealers' ability to maintain sealing effectiveness under extreme pressure is achieved through careful parameter selection in their design and material composition.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach allows for a substantial reduction in the number of frac stages, potentially eliminating the need for stages in long wellbores, leading to more efficient and cost-effective fracturing with improved oil and gas production rates.
Implementation Method 1
The balls temporarily sealed some of the perforations—those adjacent to fractures formed in the more permeable rock—and diverted the frac fluid, with the sand or acid, away from the stimulated perforations to other perforations in the next most permeable zone of rock that had not yet been stimulated. After pumping of frac fluid ceases, the ball sealers, no longer being held against the perforations by the differential pressure between the frac fluid within the well bore and the formation, fall off of the perforations
Implementation Method 2
Fracing involves pumping hydraulic fluid ('frac fluid') at high pressures and rates into a well bore, and then into the formation through perforations formed in the well casing. Fracing extends fractures already present in the formation, and causes new fractures, resulting in a network of fractures that substantially increases the permeability of the formation near the well bore.
Implementation Method 3
In a 'sand' frac a propping agent mixed with and carried by the frac fluid into fractures created and/or enlarged in the formation by the high pressure frac fluid. The sand fills the fractures and holds the rock formation faces apart after pumping of the frac fluid finishes
Data Source
AI summary
Low profile diverters for, and the use of such diverters in, fracing operations to stimulate production of oil and gas are capable of seating against and temporarily sealing perforations, even when frac fluid is being pumped at high rates and pressures, or in horizontal or highly deviated well bores, where conventional ball sealers cannot be reliably used because of high flow rates and pressures.