Interwell Fracturing Interference Evaluation of Multi-Well Pads in Shale Gas Reservoirs: A Case Study in WY Basin

Abstract Severe fracturing interference in multi-well pads has been identified in shale gas reservoirs. The gas production of affected multi-fractured horizontal wells (MFHWs) decrease a lot and is hard to restore for most wells even after fracturing fluid flowback. Currently, well interference caused by fracturing operations has become the most important factor affecting the shale gas production. However, the mechanism of fracturing interference and its quantitative impact on gas production in shale gas reservoir are not clear. The aim of this work is to assess the mechanism and dominated factors of fracturing interference of multi-well pads in shale gas reservoirs, and evaluate the impact of interwell fracturing interference on shale gas production. Firstly, field data in WY Basin are applied to calculate the ratio of impacted wells to newly fractured wells and understand the influencing degree and recovering degree of gas production. The main controlling factors of fracturing interference are determined and the interwell fracturing interacting types are presented. Furthermore, the production recovering potential for impacted wells are analyzed. Finally, some suggestions for mitigating fracturing interference are provided. The impact degree and recovering degree of gas production are divided into three categories. The dominated factors of fracturing interference include well spacing, pressure of the affected wells before interference, gas production before interference, and flowback ratio of fracturing fluid. The influencing degree of gas production can be estimated by using the generated equations of impact degree of gas production per well spacing (IDGPs) or impact degree of gas production per flowback ratio (IDGPf) Another novel finding is that 70% of affected parent wells belong to adjacent well pad compared with the newly fractured child well. The interwell fracturing interference is divided into four types, including pressure interference without direct communications between two MFHWs (Type I), fracturing interference through natural fracture/secondary fractures (Type II), fracturing interference through hydraulic fractures (Type III), and direct communication between hydraulic fractures and wellbore of adjacent well (Type IV). Fracturing communication through hydraulic fractures or secondary/natural fractures are more common, and the impact on well safety and production performance increases from Type I to Type IV. Therefore, the fracturing parameters need to be optimized to reduce the fracturing interference. This study can provide reasonable suggestions for infill well optimization, fracturing design, and interwell fracturing interference mitigation to achieve the highest gas recovery of all multi-well pads in shale gas reservoirs.