American Oil and Gas Reporter - April 2022 - 45

SpecialReport: Eagle Ford Activity
Currently, the venture is participating
with the Gas Technology Institute in a
U.S. Department of Energy-funded Hydraulic
Fracturing Test Site, with work
ongoing on the third phase in a two-well
refrac project, Ketter reports.
The joint venture drilled a horizontal
monitoring well and captured 420 feet
of horizontal whole core to examine
fracture propagation and the location of
proppant from an original parent well,
he explains. The team then refractured
two wells and infilled with three new
wells, he says. To get a holistic look at
refrac effectiveness, the project has utilized
permanent fiber optic, disposable
fiber optic, sealed wellbore pressure
monitoring, timelapse geochemistry,
pressure gauges and tracers.
" The quick takeaway is that we are
happy with the performance and technical
results, " Ketter says. " This has been a
great project for us and we have a significant
inventory of refracs that we look
forward to pursuing in the future. "
Rationale For Refracs
Rates of return and net present values
for refracs are now highly competitive
with new well drilling, says Robert Barba,
president of Integrated Energy Services,
pointing to its recent study that evaluates
the post-refrac production declines for
58 Eagle Ford refracs. The P50 IRR using
an initial year WTI price of $75.70 (price
on Oct. 1, 2021) was 85% and the NPV
was $4.6 million.
" Virtually all the objections that people
have had against refracs in the past are
gone, " Barba says. " If the refrac candidate
has adequate volumes of stranded hydrocarbons
between large cluster spacings,
or if an infill child well is adjacent to the
refrac candidate, refracs are an attractive
option to maximize asset value. "
These competitive economics can be
achieved for 60%-70% of the cost of a
new drill with a lot fewer moving parts,
he goes on. Isolation of the initial depleted
clusters is derisked significantly with
mechanical liners or cemented casing
over diverter-only treatments. " They are
no longer a 'pump-and-pray' exercise
that often didn't answer the prayers, "
Barba remarks.
Prior to 2015, almost 9,000 wells in the
Eagle Ford were completed with cluster
spacings that were three or more times
wider than current spacing, he explains,
leaving significant volumes of stranded hydrocarbons.
With a frac draining only 7.5
feet of lateral around each cluster, as much
as 85% of the oil was left in place with 50foot
cluster spacings, Barba insists.
In one area of the study, five refracs
had combined recovery factors (cumulative
plus EUR) averaging 13.7%, while
six offset new-drill completions with
nearly identical stimulation treatments
and spacings averaged 8.8%. Refracs in
wells with original effective cluster spacings
greater than 50 feet can have threefour
times the original recovery factors
because of the large volumes of hydrocarbons
initially left behind the pipe, he
reports. Refracs also protect infill child
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APRIL 2022 45
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American Oil and Gas Reporter - April 2022

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