Identification of Refracturing Reorientation using Decline-Analysis and Geomechanical Simulator

Summary Refracturing is used in many producing wells to improve well productivity, which falls over time. Well rate/pressure performance analysis indicates that in some cases a significant improvement of well productivity is observed after refracturing. Fracture reorientation is a possible reason why well productivity improves. It is important to run a forecast of fracture reorientation after refracturing. Completing this task will help develop an approach to a better selection of candidate wells for refracturing. This paper shows results of numerical modeling of well rate and pressure performance before and after refracturing for cases when properties of the "old" fracture improved and for a case of fracture reorientation after hydraulic fracturing (HF), i.e., for two (the "old" one and the "new" one) perpendicular fractures. Results of numerical modeling made it possible to estimate the contribution that the improvement/recovery of the "old" fracture properties make into the well inflow as well as the contribution resulting from the existence of two fractures. Further, the production pressure analysis of field data for wells where repeated HF jobs were performed was made. The occurrence of fracture reorientation in all considered examples was checked in the geomechanical module. The analysis of the impact, which different reservoir values, Yung module have upon the possibility to redirect the fracture during refracturing, was performed in the geomechanical module, too.