Summary

Well Data Labs and ResFrac collaborated with Devon Energy is demonstrate an automated workflow for calibrating ResFrac models to Sealed Wellbore Pressure Monitoring (SWPM) data from HFTS 1 Phase 3 refrac project in the Eagle Ford. The workflow we followed was the same as that in our blog post tutorial on using Volume to First Responses (VFRs) from SWPM:

• Well Data Labs calculated the VFRs for each stage design in the 5H stimulation well.
• A ResFrac model was constructed to include three stage designs from 5H (a 7-cluster stage, 12-cluster stage, and 22-cluster stage) plus a “bounding” stage on the toe-side of the model to impose a stress shadow on the rest of the model.
• Using the automated history matching capability, the VFR for the 7-cluster stage (stage 2 in the model) was set as the objective function and vertical toughness, horizontal toughness, and toughness scaling were used as the variable parameters.
• Matching to the 7-cluster stage VFR proved sufficient to match the VFRs observed in the 12-cluster and 22-cluster stages.
• The calibrated model not only matched the VFRs for all three stage designs, but the resulting modeled fracture geometries closely matched those inferred from the cross-well fiber optic strain (check out the comparison images in the paper!).

The paper demonstrates the ability to use SWPM data to quickly calibrate ResFrac models to fracture geometry, the fidelity of those calibrated models when interrogated against fiber optic geometry characterization, and employ those models for further calibration to production data and ultimately optimize future developments.

Read the full paper here.