Infill Well Optimization for Parent-Child Drilling and Stimulation | SLB

Infill Well Optimization

Maximize the returns from your infill well investments by harnessing the power of fit-for-purpose technologies and digital workflows

Infill well optimization

Infill drilling accounts for more than 60% of the new wells drilled in North America, making it more important than ever to follow a consistent and holistic process of planning, designing, constructing, completing, and producing them.

tight infill development bakken shale
Example of tight infill development in the Bakken Shale, US.

Infill drilling sparks changes for operators

In most US unconventional basins, operators start development by drilling the minimum number of wells needed to hold their acreage. These initial wells are sometimes called parent wells. Operators then start drilling infill wells, also called child wells. When the child well stimulation operation communicates with a parent well, the result is parent-child well interference or a frac hit.

Frac hits can have positive, negative, or neutral effects on parent well production. In addition, infill well production varies with distance from the parent, time elapsed since the parent began producing, and other factors. Rapid production declines can also occur in parent and child wells after infill well stimulation.

64%
Parent wells with negative interference
−40%
Production performance of infill wells vs. preexisting wells
$21B
Negative economic impact over last 2 years
Infill Well Analytics App

Pay it Forward Webinar Series: Infill Wells (Part 1)

Learn about minimizing losses during well shut-in and restart operations.

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    Schlumberger is uniquely positioned to help you eliminate challenges that impair infill wells from maximizing their true potential by providing comprehensive technologies and integrated reservoir-centric workflows, enabled by data-driven digital solutions.

    Parent production affects child fractures—and productivity

    The point of infill drilling is to replace reserves as parent well production declines. But the parent well’s production depletes the reservoir, and the reduced reservoir pressure tends to reduce formation stresses, attracting new hydraulic fractures from nearby infill wells.

    If a new well is too close to the parent well, its fractures will grow asymmetrically toward the lower stress, creating a drainage area that largely overlaps the area already depleted by the parent well. Thus, the child well’s initial production will be markedly lower than that of the parent well, and it will decline faster.

    Differences in experiences by play exacerbate the challenge of optimizing the field and individual well designs.

    parent well production
    After 7 years of production, reservoir pressure is depleted around a parent well, leading to asymmetric fracture growth toward the depleted zone and frac hits from the nearer of two child wells.
    Frac hits webinar

    World Oil Webcast Replay

    In case you missed it: Learn about best practices for developing and extending unconventional fields with infill wells.

    Watch the webcast

    Infill well best practices across North America

    Williston Basin

    Factors for success in North Dakota, US, and Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Canada.

    Infill execution

    Permian Basin

    Factors for success in the Midland Basin and Delaware Basin of West Texas and southern New Mexico.

    Infill planning

    Eagle Ford Shale

    Factors for success in South Texas.

    Infill design

    Infill execution

    Haynesville Shale

    Factors for success in East Texas and northern Louisiana.

    Infill well solution workflow

    Take a holistic, exploration-to-production, digital approach to eliminate challenges that impair your infill well potential.

    Infill well optimization workflow
    The Schlumberger approach to infill well optimization.
    Oilfield workers gather in the field.

    Better Engineering Can Help You Reverse the Trend of Underperforming Infill Wells

    With experience in all of the major unconventional basins in North America and around the world, our engineers can help optimize your infill well performance.

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