Research and application of a new stimulation technology for deep coalbed methane vertical wells in central and Northern Zhengzhuang block, southern Qinshui Basin

Abstract

In order to improve the production of coalbed methane vertical wells in the central and northern Zhengzhuang block, southern Qinshui Basin, Shanxi, China, this paper analyzes the reasons for the poor stimulation effect of medium-deep coalbed methane vertical wells, based on the ground stress test data and fracturing monitoring data of these evaluation wells in the study area, proposes targeted stimulation techniques, designs and carries out field comparative pilot studies and analyzes their results. The results show that there are three main reasons for the low production of these vertical wells in the study area. Firstly, the vertical fracture is dominant, resulting in the shorter length of hydraulic fractures. With the increase of burial depth, the length and width of fractures decreases at the same fracturing scale. Secondly, with the increase of burial depth, the embedment depth of proppants into coal rock increases and the closure of hydraulic fractures speeds up. As a result, the stable production time is short, and the main form of gas production curve is “single peak” type. Thirdly, after the initial fracturing, the coal body structure is much more broken, and new fractures are easy to enter the initial fractures, which increases the difficulty of creating new fractures, resulting in poor stimulation effect. In view of the above reasons, the paper proposes an innovative technology of pre-plug, large-scale and remote-support re-fracturing. Pre-plug means that relatively low displacement, sand ratio and scale are first used to fill initial fractures, and then large-scale re-fracturing is carried out to create new fractures. Large-scale fracturing refers to the fracturing with large displacement, large fluid volume and high sand ratio. In order to improve the stimulation effect of middle-deep reservoirs, the fracturing fluid volume is increased from 600−800 m3 to more than 1 300−2 000 m3, the displacement is increased from 6−8 m3/min to more than 10−14 m3/min, and a low viscosity fracturing fluid system combined with low density proppants is used to increase the sand ratio from 7%−8% to more than 10%−15%. Remote-support is a combination of self-suspended proppants and large displacement to increase proppants migration distance and increase the proportion of the propped fractures. The average daily production of a single well reached 1 380 m3, which was 1 190 m3 higher than that before, and nearly 1 000 m3 higher than the stable gas production of adjacent wells, realizing the production breakthrough of vertical wells in the low-production area of the middle-deep reservoir in the north of Zhengzhuang block. Results of the comparative pilot studies showed that the average net construction pressure increased by 3.3 MPa after pre-plug, compared with the initial fracturing, which means that new fractures were formed and resulted in the production increase by 1 000 m3 compared with that of the wells without the Pre-plug. The pilot results show that, in general, the larger the technical parameters of pre-plug, large-scale and remote-support re-fracturing, the better the production performance.

Keywords

• high-rank coalbed methane
• central and northern zhengzhuang block
• medium-deep coalbed methane
• stimulation technology
• pre-plug, large-scale and remote-support re-fracturing