solutions
USE OUR INDEPENDENT LABS, EXPERTS, AND DATA TO MAKE BETTER WELLS...
Data Generation
• World-class analytical laboratories
• Skilled technicians
• Consistent, efficient workflows
• Rapid measurement techniques
• Quality assurance
Rock Properties
Rock Properties
Improve your understanding of the subsurface with direct, relevant measurements of petrophysical and mechanical rock properties of rocks that provide superior inputs for completion design and reservoir simulation.
Plug Screening - Micro-CT
Premier uses micro-CT scanning to confirm plug samples taken from whole core or rotary side wall cores are free from cracks or abnormalities and suitable for further evaluation, as well as to identify bedding planes in samples destined for geomechanical testing.
Porosity and Saturation - NMR
Traditional Dean-Stark methods are destructive to organic matter in the rock. Premier uses NMR to quantify the volumes of oil and water in samples without disturbing their integrity. NMR T2 measurements on fully saturated samples give an accurate porosity measurement.
Nano-Darcy Permeability Measured at Steady State
We measure steady-state liquid permeability, an industry-recognized best practice, using a process that has been optimized for throughput and repeatability, even on nano-Darcy rock. This approach eliminates assumptions associated with pressure transient tests.
Static and Dynamic Mechanical Properties
Premier measures rock mechanical properties on samples up to whole core diameter, including the most fissile materials, capturing anisotropy using cantilever bridges to measure radial deformation. Dynamic mechanical properties can be used for superior sonic log calibration and mechanical earth model optimization.
Fluid Properties
Fluid Properties
Understanding the elemental and biological makeup of source water and produced fluids and how they interact with formation material is vital to developing effective drilling, completion, stimulation, and production fluids and treatments. Premier Oilfield Group operates an integrated laboratory for water analysis, chemical evaluation, customized fluid formulations, and recovery optimization.
Water analysis provides an elemental characterization of source water or formation fluids from frac flowback or production. Typical analyses include pH, alkalinity, specific gravity, total dissolved solids (TDS), hardness (anionic and cationic).
Microbial Analysis is performed using ATP, SRB, and APB kits to determine bacterial levels and the effectiveness of biocides.
Scaling potential is predicted based on a broad range of parameters, such as brine mixing, pH and temperature. A Dynamic Scale Loop is available to accurately evaluate scaling potential and inhibitor performance under dynamic temperature and pressure conditions. We also offer corrosion inhibitor testing across a wide temperature range (up to 600°F).
Rheological performance testing and compatibility testing between target formation, formation fluids, and additives is used to evaluate stimulation fluid systems, including friction reducers, linear and crosslinked gels, and acids. Many tests can be performed under downhole pressure and temperature conditions. A multi-diameter flow loop is available to evaluate friction reducers within a given water chemistry, including “on the fly” and batch mixing modes.
Wettability studies investigate chemical efficacy for combinations of source water, formation fluids, and formation rock. Surface tension, interfacial tension and contact angle are evaluated to assess surfactants’ ability to alter formation wettability for oil recovery optimization.
To understanding how a formation will be affected by a given fluid chemistry, we apply x-ray diffraction (XRD, for mineralogy), capillary suction time (CST, for swelling sensitivity), and roller oven disaggregation testing (for destabilization tendency). Appropriate adjustments to fluid system chemistry can then be made by our subject matter experts.
Although not a fluid, proppant is pumped along with stimulation fluids to create a highly conductive flow path through the formation. Proppants are characterized using API and ISO testing procedures. We have a proprietary proppant transport simulator that represents a multi-fracture network and facilitates visual evaluation of fluid and proppant behavior. We have also developed specialized testing to evaluate the effectiveness of diverting material across fractures or perforations under pressure and determine the rate of downhole degradation.
Core Analysis
Core Analysis
Efficient and careful core handling and characterization are essential to obtaining the greatest value of information from new or archived core material.
Core Capture and Processing
Experienced field and laboratory personnel are available to catch newly cut core at the wellsite and ensure it is properly marked and secured for transportation, including on-site preservation when required.
At the laboratory, extrusion, slabbing, whole core scanning, and photography are performed prior to characterizing the core and selecting subsamples for routine and advanced measurements.
Representative Plug Selection and Preparation
Selecting the right locations for advanced core analysis is critical to obtaining a representative and useful dataset. Premier uses statistical relationships between well logs, spectral gamma-ray, and x-ray fluorescence (XRF) to identify characteristic facies along a core. We apply cluster analysis to guide facies identification based on depositional environment, which is often overlooked during visual description. Our technical staff leverages years of experience to produce pristine samples for testing.
Rock Property Measurement
We perform a full suite of routine and advanced rock property measurements to meet the client’s data gathering objectives – see Rock Properties, above. These tests are carried out at our Centers of Excellence in Houston, Aberdeen, and Cairo.
Cuttings
Cuttings
Improve completions efficiency using cuttings-based data
Figuring out where to place hydraulic fractures along a horizontal well and how to efficiently subdivide them into stages requires relevant data and expertise. Elemental data from drill cuttings provide a cost-effective data source that can be used to optimize completion design, reducing stimulation costs, improving stimulation efficiency and increasing well productivity.
Elemental Formation Evaluation
Cuttings collected in the build section and along the horizontal well are expedited to a dedicated processing facility at our Geochemistry Center of Excellence in Houston. They are carefully and consistently prepared to ensure reliable measurements, then characterized using rapid x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques.
Proprietary element-to-mineral transforms are used to define chemofacies and determine formation properties along the wellbore, including critical fracturing parameters such as brittleness. Reservoir quality, organic richness, and susceptibility to formation damage can also be assessed.
Expert geoscientists use the observed chemostratigraphy to divide the interval targeted for stimulation into stages made up of rock with similar mechanical properties. This maximizes the potential for effective fracture initiation at every perforation cluster.
Adjustments to stimulation fluid formulation are also recommended when the interpreted mineralogy – especially clay content – indicates that incompatibility or formation instability could impair stimulation or production performance.
Success Story from the East Texas Haynesville
An operator in East Texas compared wells completed using Premier’s cuttings-based completion optimization workflow to conventional geometrically staged completions.
Stage design optimization resulted in an average stage length increase of 24%, eliminating up to 12 stages from a typical 7,500-foot lateral. Expensive horizontal wellbore logging was also eliminated.
Treatment fluid optimization was recommended for stages with clay volumes as high as 50%, which were subsequently treated with much greater success than earlier wells. Stimulation stages along optimized wells were placed with 99.5% efficiency compared to only 96.8% with geometric designs, further reducing wireline and stimulation costs.
Cost savings of $600,000 per well were realized, while achieving equal or greater productivity per lateral foot. Estimated ultimate recovery of the optimized wells is 50 MMCF greater per thousand lateral feet than geometrically completed wells on the same pad.
Flow Behavior
Flow Behavior
Understanding how fluids flow through reservoir rock is vital to simulating, predicting, and diagnosing well and field performance.
At Premier, we bring together laboratory technology, expertise, and workflows to perform representative tests under downhole conditions.
Flow experiments can be used to improve understanding or diagnose and treat problems across a wide range of domains including fracture stimulation and flowback, primary production, improved oil recovery (IOR), and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) situations.
Rock Fluid Interaction
Rock Fluid Interaction
To understanding how a formation will be affected by a given fluid chemistry, we apply x-ray diffraction (XRD, for mineralogy), capillary suction time (CST, for swelling sensitivity), and roller oven disaggregation testing (for destabilization tendency).
Appropriate adjustments to fluid system chemistry can then be made by our subject matter experts.
Wettability studies investigate chemical efficacy for combinations of source water, formation fluids, and formation rock. Surface tension, interfacial tension and contact angle are evaluated to assess surfactants’ ability to alter formation wettability for oil recovery optimization.
Our formation damage team provides independent verification of drilling, completion, and injection fluid performance. We use innovative experimental designs – including in-depth NMR analysis and micro-CT imaging – to recreate the reservoir in the laboratory. Drilling and completion fluids are applied under the same conditions and sequences as they are in the field, creating damage mechanisms that can be imaged and measured to discriminate different damage types and evaluate potential remediation methods.
Data Generation
• World-class analytical laboratories
• Skilled technicians
• Consistent, efficient workflows
• Rapid measurement techniques
• Quality assurance
Rock Properties
Rock Properties
Improve your understanding of the subsurface with direct, relevant measurements of petrophysical and mechanical rock properties of rocks that provide superior inputs for completion design and reservoir simulation.
Plug Screening - Micro-CT
Premier uses micro-CT scanning to confirm plug samples taken from whole core or rotary side wall cores are free from cracks or abnormalities and suitable for further evaluation, as well as to identify bedding planes in samples destined for geomechanical testing.
Porosity and Saturation - NMR
Traditional Dean-Stark methods are destructive to organic matter in the rock. Premier uses NMR to quantify the volumes of oil and water in samples without disturbing their integrity. NMR T2 measurements on fully saturated samples give an accurate porosity measurement.
Nano-Darcy Permeability Measured at Steady State
We measure steady-state liquid permeability, an industry-recognized best practice, using a process that has been optimized for throughput and repeatability, even on nano-Darcy rock. This approach eliminates assumptions associated with pressure transient tests.
Static and Dynamic Mechanical Properties
Premier measures rock mechanical properties on samples up to whole core diameter, including the most fissile materials, capturing anisotropy using cantilever bridges to measure radial deformation. Dynamic mechanical properties can be used for superior sonic log calibration and mechanical earth model optimization.
Fluid Properties
Fluid Properties
Understanding the elemental and biological makeup of source water and produced fluids and how they interact with formation material is vital to developing effective drilling, completion, stimulation, and production fluids and treatments. Premier Oilfield Group operates an integrated laboratory for water analysis, chemical evaluation, customized fluid formulations, and recovery optimization.
Water analysis provides an elemental characterization of source water or formation fluids from frac flowback or production. Typical analyses include pH, alkalinity, specific gravity, total dissolved solids (TDS), hardness (anionic and cationic).
Microbial Analysis is performed using ATP, SRB, and APB kits to determine bacterial levels and the effectiveness of biocides.
Scaling potential is predicted based on a broad range of parameters, such as brine mixing, pH and temperature. A Dynamic Scale Loop is available to accurately evaluate scaling potential and inhibitor performance under dynamic temperature and pressure conditions. We also offer corrosion inhibitor testing across a wide temperature range (up to 600°F).
Rheological performance testing and compatibility testing between target formation, formation fluids, and additives is used to evaluate stimulation fluid systems, including friction reducers, linear and crosslinked gels, and acids. Many tests can be performed under downhole pressure and temperature conditions. A multi-diameter flow loop is available to evaluate friction reducers within a given water chemistry, including “on the fly” and batch mixing modes.
Wettability studies investigate chemical efficacy for combinations of source water, formation fluids, and formation rock. Surface tension, interfacial tension and contact angle are evaluated to assess surfactants’ ability to alter formation wettability for oil recovery optimization.
To understanding how a formation will be affected by a given fluid chemistry, we apply x-ray diffraction (XRD, for mineralogy), capillary suction time (CST, for swelling sensitivity), and roller oven disaggregation testing (for destabilization tendency). Appropriate adjustments to fluid system chemistry can then be made by our subject matter experts.
Although not a fluid, proppant is pumped along with stimulation fluids to create a highly conductive flow path through the formation. Proppants are characterized using API and ISO testing procedures. We have a proprietary proppant transport simulator that represents a multi-fracture network and facilitates visual evaluation of fluid and proppant behavior. We have also developed specialized testing to evaluate the effectiveness of diverting material across fractures or perforations under pressure and determine the rate of downhole degradation.
Core Analysis
Core Analysis
Efficient and careful core handling and characterization are essential to obtaining the greatest value of information from new or archived core material.
Core Capture and Processing
Experienced field and laboratory personnel are available to catch newly cut core at the wellsite and ensure it is properly marked and secured for transportation, including on-site preservation when required.
At the laboratory, extrusion, slabbing, whole core scanning, and photography are performed prior to characterizing the core and selecting subsamples for routine and advanced measurements.
Representative Plug Selection and Preparation
Selecting the right locations for advanced core analysis is critical to obtaining a representative and useful dataset. Premier uses statistical relationships between well logs, spectral gamma-ray, and x-ray fluorescence (XRF) to identify characteristic facies along a core. We apply cluster analysis to guide facies identification based on depositional environment, which is often overlooked during visual description. Our technical staff leverages years of experience to produce pristine samples for testing.
Rock Property Measurement
We perform a full suite of routine and advanced rock property measurements to meet the client’s data gathering objectives – see Rock Properties, above. These tests are carried out at our Centers of Excellence in Houston, Aberdeen, and Cairo.
Cuttings
Cuttings
Improve completions efficiency using cuttings-based data
Figuring out where to place hydraulic fractures along a horizontal well and how to efficiently subdivide them into stages requires relevant data and expertise. Elemental data from drill cuttings provide a cost-effective data source that can be used to optimize completion design, reducing stimulation costs, improving stimulation efficiency and increasing well productivity.
Elemental Formation Evaluation
Cuttings collected in the build section and along the horizontal well are expedited to a dedicated processing facility at our Geochemistry Center of Excellence in Houston. They are carefully and consistently prepared to ensure reliable measurements, then characterized using rapid x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques.
Proprietary element-to-mineral transforms are used to define chemofacies and determine formation properties along the wellbore, including critical fracturing parameters such as brittleness. Reservoir quality, organic richness, and susceptibility to formation damage can also be assessed.
Expert geoscientists use the observed chemostratigraphy to divide the interval targeted for stimulation into stages made up of rock with similar mechanical properties. This maximizes the potential for effective fracture initiation at every perforation cluster.
Adjustments to stimulation fluid formulation are also recommended when the interpreted mineralogy – especially clay content – indicates that incompatibility or formation instability could impair stimulation or production performance.
Success Story from the East Texas Haynesville
An operator in East Texas compared wells completed using Premier’s cuttings-based completion optimization workflow to conventional geometrically staged completions.
Stage design optimization resulted in an average stage length increase of 24%, eliminating up to 12 stages from a typical 7,500-foot lateral. Expensive horizontal wellbore logging was also eliminated.
Treatment fluid optimization was recommended for stages with clay volumes as high as 50%, which were subsequently treated with much greater success than earlier wells. Stimulation stages along optimized wells were placed with 99.5% efficiency compared to only 96.8% with geometric designs, further reducing wireline and stimulation costs.
Cost savings of $600,000 per well were realized, while achieving equal or greater productivity per lateral foot. Estimated ultimate recovery of the optimized wells is 50 MMCF greater per thousand lateral feet than geometrically completed wells on the same pad.
Flow Behavior
Flow Behavior
Understanding how fluids flow through reservoir rock is vital to simulating, predicting, and diagnosing well and field performance.
At Premier, we bring together laboratory technology, expertise, and workflows to perform representative tests under downhole conditions.
Flow experiments can be used to improve understanding or diagnose and treat problems across a wide range of domains including fracture stimulation and flowback, primary production, improved oil recovery (IOR), and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) situations.
Rock Fluid Interaction
Rock Fluid Interaction
To understanding how a formation will be affected by a given fluid chemistry, we apply x-ray diffraction (XRD, for mineralogy), capillary suction time (CST, for swelling sensitivity), and roller oven disaggregation testing (for destabilization tendency).
Appropriate adjustments to fluid system chemistry can then be made by our subject matter experts.
Wettability studies investigate chemical efficacy for combinations of source water, formation fluids, and formation rock. Surface tension, interfacial tension and contact angle are evaluated to assess surfactants’ ability to alter formation wettability for oil recovery optimization.
Our formation damage team provides independent verification of drilling, completion, and injection fluid performance. We use innovative experimental designs – including in-depth NMR analysis and micro-CT imaging – to recreate the reservoir in the laboratory. Drilling and completion fluids are applied under the same conditions and sequences as they are in the field, creating damage mechanisms that can be imaged and measured to discriminate different damage types and evaluate potential remediation methods.
Data aggregation
• Unique physical sample library
• Extensive data library
• Model & correlation collections
• GIS-based access portal
• eCommerce delivery platform
• Preferred pricing for benefactors
Premier Sample Library (PSL)
Premier Sample Library (PSL)
The PSL contains over 50 million core and cuttings samples from wells across North America, including over 150,000 wells in the Permian Basin – the most comprehensive collection of its kind.
Data from these samples allow our clients to optimize well location, well spacing, and completion design. They support regional chemostratigraphic studies using Premier’s advanced XRF and XRD workflows and measurements.
PSL data can be integrated with other well and reservoir information to deliver high-resolution multi-disciplinary models and studies that enable more efficient and more effective field development decision making.
datastak™
datastak™ Powered by Well Log Data
Instant access to consistent, reliable rock property data
Create an account to digitally access millions of rock samples and thousands of existing measurements
- Refine and calibrate petrophysical models using compositional rock data
- Determine source rock quality and organic content
- Determine value and economics of a play without having to drill
- Leverage Premier’s expertise for enhanced data interpretations and applications
Studies
Studies
Enhance the accuracy of your petrophysical and geological models to reduce subsurface uncertainty and development risk.
Deliverables:
- High resolution chemostratigraphic and lithostratigraphic dataset.
- Elementally derived mineralogy models for the formations of interest, including Bakken and Three Forks.
- Prebuilt Petrel project with
- enhanced interpretations and mapped reservoir properties.
- Chemofacies interpretations of elemental data.
- Core lithofacies and rock fabric descriptions with associated
- thin sections.
Benefits:
- Client ready integrated reservoir models that provide high resolution data for use in subsurface exploration, development, completion, and production optimization workflows.
- High-res characterization of reservoir intervals refine calibrations of volumetric calculation.
- Improve correlation and predictability of stratigraphic packages with distinct geomechanical properties for well design applications.
- Refine depositional models based on lithofacies stacking patterns, petrographic data, and chemostratigraphic framework.
Calibrate and refine your volumetric calculations through reservoir characterization at unprecedented resolution.
Models & Correlations
Models & Correlations
With many years of experience working with large, integrated datasets across many of the world’s most active petroleum basins, our experts have developed a library of models and correlations that facilitate the simulation and history matching of well and reservoir performance.
In the future, we hope to make many of these models available for license through our DATASTAK™ online platform. For now, they are available to our Data Analysis and Interpretation clients whenever we perform Reservoir Solutions and Shared Data Workspace projects.
Preferred Pricing
Preferred Pricing through the Power of Sharing
No one company can acquire and analyze enough data on its own to achieve what's possible through the power of shared data.
Our unique approach to sharing the cost of core and cuttings analyses harnesses the power of multi-company solutions and crowd funding. By contributing data to a library that benefits the whole industry, eligible clients benefit from dramatically lower analysis costs.
And, when it comes to sharing data between companies, we’ve developed a compelling shared workspace approach that preserves confidentiality while allowing member companies to benefit from more robust models and integrated, high-resolution simulations.
Data aggregation
• Unique physical sample library
• Extensive data library
• Model & correlation collections
• GIS-based access portal
• eCommerce delivery platform
• Preferred pricing for benefactors
Premier Sample Library (PSL)
Premier Sample Library (PSL)
The PSL contains over 50 million core and cuttings samples from wells across North America, including over 150,000 wells in the Permian Basin – the most comprehensive collection of its kind.
Data from these samples allow our clients to optimize well location, well spacing, and completion design. They support regional chemostratigraphic studies using Premier’s advanced XRF and XRD workflows and measurements.
PSL data can be integrated with other well and reservoir information to deliver high-resolution multi-disciplinary models and studies that enable more efficient and more effective field development decision making.
datastak™
datastak™ Powered by Well Log Data
Instant access to consistent, reliable rock property data
Create an account to digitally access millions of rock samples and thousands of existing measurements
- Refine and calibrate petrophysical models using compositional rock data
- Determine source rock quality and organic content
- Determine value and economics of a play without having to drill
- Leverage Premier’s expertise for enhanced data interpretations and applications
Studies
Studies
Enhance the accuracy of your petrophysical and geological models to reduce subsurface uncertainty and development risk.
Deliverables:
- High resolution chemostratigraphic and lithostratigraphic dataset.
- Elementally derived mineralogy models for the formations of interest, including Bakken and Three Forks.
- Prebuilt Petrel project with
- enhanced interpretations and mapped reservoir properties.
- Chemofacies interpretations of elemental data.
- Core lithofacies and rock fabric descriptions with associated
- thin sections.
Benefits:
- Client ready integrated reservoir models that provide high resolution data for use in subsurface exploration, development, completion, and production optimization workflows.
- High-res characterization of reservoir intervals refine calibrations of volumetric calculation.
- Improve correlation and predictability of stratigraphic packages with distinct geomechanical properties for well design applications.
- Refine depositional models based on lithofacies stacking patterns, petrographic data, and chemostratigraphic framework.
Calibrate and refine your volumetric calculations through reservoir characterization at unprecedented resolution.
Models & Correlations
Models & Correlations
With many years of experience working with large, integrated datasets across many of the world’s most active petroleum basins, our experts have developed a library of models and correlations that facilitate the simulation and history matching of well and reservoir performance.
In the future, we hope to make many of these models available for license through our DATASTAK™ online platform. For now, they are available to our Data Analysis and Interpretation clients whenever we perform Reservoir Solutions and Shared Data Workspace projects.
Preferred Pricing
Preferred Pricing through the Power of Sharing
No one company can acquire and analyze enough data on its own to achieve what's possible through the power of shared data.
Our unique approach to sharing the cost of core and cuttings analyses harnesses the power of multi-company solutions and crowd funding. By contributing data to a library that benefits the whole industry, eligible clients benefit from dramatically lower analysis costs.
And, when it comes to sharing data between companies, we’ve developed a compelling shared workspace approach that preserves confidentiality while allowing member companies to benefit from more robust models and integrated, high-resolution simulations.
DATA ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION
• Geomodelling
• Completion design & analysis
• Fluid system design & evaluation
• Reservoir simulation
• Field development planning
• Multi-client shared data projects
Formation Damage
Formation Damage
Evaluate and select the right drilling and completion fluids for your well. And, when things don’t work out as planned, enhance well productivity through expert investigation and remediation of formation damage.
Premier’s formation damage solutions provide independent verification of drilling, completion, and injection fluid performance. We use innovative experimental designs – including in-depth NMR analysis and micro-CT imaging – to recreate the reservoir in the laboratory. Drilling and completion fluids are applied under the same conditions and sequences as they are in the field, creating damage mechanisms that can be imaged and measured to discriminate different damage types and evaluate potential remediation methods.
As our clients develop a clearer understanding of rock-fluid interactions in their well, they can anticipate and mitigate drilling hazards and productivity impairment. This improves financial returns by reducing wellbore damage and improving well productivity. Since Premier is independent from chemical vendors and service providers, we offer an unbiased evaluation of the least-damaging and most cost-effective fluid systems to ensure the optimal economic outcome.
PVT and EOR
PVT and EOR
Our PVT and organic chemistry solutions produce detailed reservoir fluid descriptions that lead to superior well, reservoir, and production system simulations. They also help our clients to understand which parts of the reservoir are being produced.
Premier experts evaluate fluid composition, properties, and behavior using a range of standardized tests, including constant composition expansion, differential liberation, and constant volume depletion.
EOR-specific tests include slim tubes, swell, and vaporization experiments.
The results are used to calibrate an equation-of-state for predicting reservoir fluid properties under different physical conditions.
The origin of produced fluids can be interpreted by comparing produced fluid properties to results obtained using fluids extracted from drill cuttings or core samples.
Field Development
Field Development Planning
Our Reservoir Solutions team brings together hundreds of years of multidisciplinary experience across the seismic-to-simulation workflow.
Working with complex datasets, we build multiple realizations of structural geomodels and mechanical earth models that describe the subsurface volume of interest. These are used for completion modeling, where history matching to stimulation records helps identify a few non-unique models that honor the available data. The remaining candidate models are carried forward to reservoir simulation, where history matching to production records further refines the model and reduces uncertainty.
Once a reliable model has been constructed that satisfactorily describes existing well behavior, it can be used to test alternative development scenarios and support field development planning and decision making.
Operators who lack the in-house resources to perform rigorous field studies or who want an independent point of view to compare with in-house results should contact Premier for further information.
Well Placement & Spacing
Well Placement & Spacing
Deciding where to drill – vertically, azimuthally, and relative to existing offset wells – is one of the most important (and difficult) challenges facing a field development team.
We help reduce uncertainty and facilitate concept testing and selection by building high-resolution, multi-disciplinary facies models to describe the subsurface volume under development.
After calibrating these models using all available data – including rock property data from the Premier Sample Library, when applicable – we can help clients answer questions about initial well spacing, vertical and horizontal drilling patterns, preferred completion sequences and timing, differential depletion, parent-child well interference, and fracture asymmetry during infill completions.
Engineered Completion Design
Engineered Completion Design
Improve completions efficiency using cuttings-based data.
Figuring out where to place hydraulic fractures along a horizontal well and how to efficiently subdivide them into stages requires relevant data and expertise. Elemental data from drill cuttings provide a cost-effective data source that can be used to optimize completion design, reducing stimulation costs, improving stimulation efficiency and increasing well productivity.
Elemental Formation Evaluation
Cuttings collected in the build section and along the horizontal well are expedited to a dedicated processing facility at our Geochemistry Center of Excellence in Houston. They are carefully and consistently prepared to ensure reliable measurements, then characterized using rapid x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques.
Proprietary element-to-mineral transforms are used to define chemofacies and determine formation properties along the wellbore, including critical fracturing parameters such as brittleness. Reservoir quality, organic richness, and susceptibility to formation damage can also be assessed.
Expert geoscientists use the observed chemostratigraphy to divide the interval targeted for stimulation into stages made up of rock with similar mechanical properties. This maximizes the potential for effective fracture initiation at every perforation cluster.
Adjustments to stimulation fluid formulation are also recommended when the interpreted mineralogy – especially clay content – indicates that incompatibility or formation instability could impair stimulation or production performance.
XRF TYPICALLY MEASURES… | …TO MODEL |
SiO2, Al2O3, Fe2O3, MgO, CaO, V, Ni, Mo, U | Quartz, K-Feldspar, Plagioclase, Total Clays, Calcite, Dolomite, Pyrite, TOC |
Success Story from the East Texas Haynesville
An operator in East Texas compared wells completed using Premier’s cuttings-based completion optimization workflow to conventional geometrically staged completions.
Stage design optimization resulted in an average stage length increase of 24%, eliminating up to 12 stages from a typical 7,500-foot lateral. Expensive horizontal wellbore logging was also eliminated.
Treatment fluid optimization was recommended for stages with clay volumes as high as 50%, which were subsequently treated with much greater success than earlier wells. Stimulation stages along optimized wells were placed with 99.5% efficiency compared to only 96.8% with geometric designs, further reducing wireline and stimulation costs.
Cost savings of $600,000 per well were realized, while achieving equal or greater productivity per lateral foot. Estimated ultimate recovery of the optimized wells is 50 MMCF greater per thousand lateral feet than geometrically completed wells on the same pad.
DATA ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION
• Geomodelling
• Completion design & analysis
• Fluid system design & evaluation
• Reservoir simulation
• Field development planning
• Multi-client shared data projects
Formation Damage
Formation Damage
Evaluate and select the right drilling and completion fluids for your well. And, when things don’t work out as planned, enhance well productivity through expert investigation and remediation of formation damage.
Premier’s formation damage solutions provide independent verification of drilling, completion, and injection fluid performance. We use innovative experimental designs – including in-depth NMR analysis and micro-CT imaging – to recreate the reservoir in the laboratory. Drilling and completion fluids are applied under the same conditions and sequences as they are in the field, creating damage mechanisms that can be imaged and measured to discriminate different damage types and evaluate potential remediation methods.
As our clients develop a clearer understanding of rock-fluid interactions in their well, they can anticipate and mitigate drilling hazards and productivity impairment. This improves financial returns by reducing wellbore damage and improving well productivity. Since Premier is independent from chemical vendors and service providers, we offer an unbiased evaluation of the least-damaging and most cost-effective fluid systems to ensure the optimal economic outcome.
PVT and EOR
PVT and EOR
Our PVT and organic chemistry solutions produce detailed reservoir fluid descriptions that lead to superior well, reservoir, and production system simulations. They also help our clients to understand which parts of the reservoir are being produced.
Premier experts evaluate fluid composition, properties, and behavior using a range of standardized tests, including constant composition expansion, differential liberation, and constant volume depletion.
EOR-specific tests include slim tubes, swell, and vaporization experiments.
The results are used to calibrate an equation-of-state for predicting reservoir fluid properties under different physical conditions.
The origin of produced fluids can be interpreted by comparing produced fluid properties to results obtained using fluids extracted from drill cuttings or core samples.
Field Development
Field Development Planning
Our Reservoir Solutions team brings together hundreds of years of multidisciplinary experience across the seismic-to-simulation workflow.
Working with complex datasets, we build multiple realizations of structural geomodels and mechanical earth models that describe the subsurface volume of interest. These are used for completion modeling, where history matching to stimulation records helps identify a few non-unique models that honor the available data. The remaining candidate models are carried forward to reservoir simulation, where history matching to production records further refines the model and reduces uncertainty.
Once a reliable model has been constructed that satisfactorily describes existing well behavior, it can be used to test alternative development scenarios and support field development planning and decision making.
Operators who lack the in-house resources to perform rigorous field studies or who want an independent point of view to compare with in-house results should contact Premier for further information.
Well Placement & Spacing
Well Placement & Spacing
Deciding where to drill – vertically, azimuthally, and relative to existing offset wells – is one of the most important (and difficult) challenges facing a field development team.
We help reduce uncertainty and facilitate concept testing and selection by building high-resolution, multi-disciplinary facies models to describe the subsurface volume under development.
After calibrating these models using all available data – including rock property data from the Premier Sample Library, when applicable – we can help clients answer questions about initial well spacing, vertical and horizontal drilling patterns, preferred completion sequences and timing, differential depletion, parent-child well interference, and fracture asymmetry during infill completions.
Engineered Completion Design
Engineered Completion Design
Improve completions efficiency using cuttings-based data.
Figuring out where to place hydraulic fractures along a horizontal well and how to efficiently subdivide them into stages requires relevant data and expertise. Elemental data from drill cuttings provide a cost-effective data source that can be used to optimize completion design, reducing stimulation costs, improving stimulation efficiency and increasing well productivity.
Elemental Formation Evaluation
Cuttings collected in the build section and along the horizontal well are expedited to a dedicated processing facility at our Geochemistry Center of Excellence in Houston. They are carefully and consistently prepared to ensure reliable measurements, then characterized using rapid x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques.
Proprietary element-to-mineral transforms are used to define chemofacies and determine formation properties along the wellbore, including critical fracturing parameters such as brittleness. Reservoir quality, organic richness, and susceptibility to formation damage can also be assessed.
Expert geoscientists use the observed chemostratigraphy to divide the interval targeted for stimulation into stages made up of rock with similar mechanical properties. This maximizes the potential for effective fracture initiation at every perforation cluster.
Adjustments to stimulation fluid formulation are also recommended when the interpreted mineralogy – especially clay content – indicates that incompatibility or formation instability could impair stimulation or production performance.
XRF TYPICALLY MEASURES… | …TO MODEL |
SiO2, Al2O3, Fe2O3, MgO, CaO, V, Ni, Mo, U | Quartz, K-Feldspar, Plagioclase, Total Clays, Calcite, Dolomite, Pyrite, TOC |
Success Story from the East Texas Haynesville
An operator in East Texas compared wells completed using Premier’s cuttings-based completion optimization workflow to conventional geometrically staged completions.
Stage design optimization resulted in an average stage length increase of 24%, eliminating up to 12 stages from a typical 7,500-foot lateral. Expensive horizontal wellbore logging was also eliminated.
Treatment fluid optimization was recommended for stages with clay volumes as high as 50%, which were subsequently treated with much greater success than earlier wells. Stimulation stages along optimized wells were placed with 99.5% efficiency compared to only 96.8% with geometric designs, further reducing wireline and stimulation costs.
Cost savings of $600,000 per well were realized, while achieving equal or greater productivity per lateral foot. Estimated ultimate recovery of the optimized wells is 50 MMCF greater per thousand lateral feet than geometrically completed wells on the same pad.