|
|||||||||
 |
| Please
take a quick moment to answer 2 survey questions and we will provide
a summary of the confidential responses in the next issue. |
Last month, while it wasn't oilfield related, our question dealt with what should owner George Steinbrenner do with his disappointing Yankees. Responses indicated that no one felt he should fire Joe Torre as manager, 7 % felt he should replace all the key players, 38 % responded that he should find another hobby to take out his frustrations, 9 % said he should sell the franchise to the Boston Red Sox, 6 % wanted him to trade all key players to Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Florida, and 40 % said they would like to see him come to NAPE in February and let us show him what a good offshore exploration investment looks like! I will pass your comments along to George! See Mike's Discussion Points. Next month we will discuss how comfortable our subscribers are with their company's corporate strategy for growth and stability and will speak very candidly about the changes in our industry over the past decade with respect to the influence of wallstreet and the movement towards risk aversion. Very often our portfolio management systems are used primarily to monitor and project quarterly earnings, which has become the most significant driving force behind most public companies today. I will discuss next time whether that change has been beneficial for our industry and the stability of our companies, or a detriment. |
 |
| Backpressure
- Why should I be concerned about that? Because anything we can do to reduce backpressure on the formation can result in substantial increases in productivity! With high PI wells, small reductions in pressure drops can result in substantial increases in productivity. Read Further... |
 |
 |
CEC Energy Consultants assisted Tulsa-based Helmerich & Payne in the identification and evaluation of merger candidates, which resulted in a successful merger of H&P with Denver-based Key Production to form Cimarex Energy. CEC Energy Consultants combines with Rike Services to provide the US Commerce Department with training courses for Russian Oil & Gas Executives in the area of Concession Negotiation, Risk Assessment and Mitigation, and modern Economic Evaluation processes. CEC Energy Consultants combines with Rike Services to assist TotalFinaElf in providing 8-week training courses to train Indonesian nationals to become Well Operations Supervisors. |
 |
|
Having perforated a well, we can be dismayed to find that some, if
not most, of our perforations are not capable of producing at all.
We can find ample indication that most perforations are not effective
and plugged, rather than open and flowing. Flowmeter surveys commonly indicate that only a few perforations account for most of the productivity of a zone, even though the zone has been completely perforated. Sometimes wells are considered depleted based upon present production. Pulsed neutron logs can indicate a productive zone that was perforated but did not produce, which, upon rework, produced at a substantial rate. The disparity indicates all the original perforations were simply not open. 
More evidence of plugged perforations comes from blast joints that are pulled from wells, which have only a few shiny spots, indicating disproportionate flow from those few perforations. These are indications that support the inference that most of our perforations are indeed NOT open at all. Last month we addressed the problem of depth control in our perforating process, but I would like to focus this month's article on how we can increase the number of open, flowing perforations to help maximize productivity for our newly drilled/completed wells. It is difficult to perforate casing and maintain perforation tunnels that are clean and free from debris from the reservoir to the wellbore. Yet such failure can be a significant detriment to a well's productivity. Tests conducted on single-shot cores indicate that no matter what conditions existed at the time of perforating; a certain amount of pressure differential is required to initiate flow. Early work, as illustrated in Jim Rike's Completion Courses, reveals the following pressure differentials necessary to initiate flow under various conditions: Condtitions ΔP to Initiate Flow Solids-laden fluid 200-2000 psi (mud) where Formation Pressure is less than Wellbore (overbalanced) Clear Water 20-500 psi (non-filtered & Overbalanced) Clear Water 6-100 psi (non-filtered) where Wellbore Pressure is less than Formation Pressure(Underbalanced) Filtered "clean" 0.5-50 psi non damaging fluid (Underbalanced)A certain volume of fluid must flow through the perforation before it is cleaned up, which indicates that perforations need time and flow to clean up. In trying to understand why all perforations may not be open, we must realize that not all perforations will have the same clean-up pressures. Shaped charges do not have exactly the same jet characteristics. Each layer of formation does not have the same permeability and porosity. So it is erroneous to assume that the same differential pressure is required to clean up each perforation.  In addition, there will always be a pressure drop, even through an open flowing perforation, so some clean up differential will always be present. It appears that no matter how careful we are in the design of our completions, the formation heterogeneity combine to give varying clean up differentials that ultimately prevent more than 10-15 percent of the perforations from cleaning up. The varying clean up differentials may not assure open perforations even if we are comfortable that our depth control is accurate.  What can we do about getting more perforations open? Here are some of Rike's Completion School recommendations for your consideration, but you will have to take his classes to learn more about how to really improve your completion design and success.
The bottom line is you can use industry mapping software to identify anomalies in every basin in North America. When poor well productivity does not compare to favorable looking log characteristics, perforation issues may have caused the unexplainable result. Upon rework, with careful perforation and completion techniques, the well may be very prolific. I encourage you to check your corporate perforating procedures; verify your personnel are perforating wells on depth and with good perforating practices to maximize productivity. Use today's technology to identify opportunities others have missed. Best Wishes for the holidays! Mike Cherry, P. E. |
|
|
News
Highlights |
| OPEC Fails to Reach Oil Cutbacks |
| CEC
Energy Consultants 6700 Woodlands Parkway Suite 230-304 The Woodlands, Texas 77382 Office: 713-502-9235 Fax: 281-419-1046 www.CECEnergyConsultants.com Mike.Cherry@CECEnergyConsultants.com |
| Since
1999, CEC Energy Consultants has been an engineering
project management firm that allows you to outsource operations, engineering,
and business development projects while maintaining project control.
Outsourcing maximizes your profitability by allowing you to allocate
your key employee personnel to the company's strategic projects, ensuring
operational success and safety. CEC uses industry software such as Geoplus Corporation's Petra Workstations for both geologic and engineering functions, to enhance the identification of new business development opportunities with existing or newly acquired assets. Petra is unparalleled in its ability to build isopach maps and log cross-sections, but more importantly from an engineering standpoint, to analyze and screen public data sources for acquisition and drilling prospect leads as well as other advanced geologic and engineering functions. CEC Energy Consultant's expertise in using the latest technology application tools will result in reserve additions and well productivity enhancements to your asset base. Visit our website to learn more about CEC Energy Consultants incredible new technological, engineering and operations capabilities. If you feel this newsletter would be of benefit to someone you know, please feel free to forward a copy as well as distribute anything I make available in these newsletters to your staff and employees. |
 |
||||
| Deciding
to take a new job? What if your current position pays you $10,000
per month with a bonus of 10% of your salary each year, and you
have been given an opportunity to go somewhere else that offers
$10,500 per month plus 3% of the net profits each year. "Well,"
you think, "wow, a little higher salary and a percentage of the
profits! If I can improve profits, there may be no end to how much
I could make!" What would you choose to do? Read Further... |
||||
 |
||||
 |
||||
 |
||||
 |
||||
 |
||||
| Rike
Services Geoplus
Corporation |
||||
 |
||||
 |
||||
| North
American Prospect Expo (NAPE) February 5-6, 2004 Houston, Texas SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition September 26-29, 2004 Houston, Texas |
||||
|
||||
 We've
revised our website! Click here
to visit our site. |
| CEC Energy Consultants Home | Newsletter | News Release | Services | Credentials | Contact | Download | Site Map | ||
| Copyright © 2004-2008 CEC Energy Consultants | ||
| updated 01.06.08 | website design by tevadesign.com | ||