Trying to decide how many fractures your tight horizontal oil well needs? Can you reduce the numbers of fractures (and stimulation cost) with little impact on production?

How much more reserve recovery comes from using multiple fractures? What’s the optimal well density for these wells?

Proven has found that the answers to these questions change with reservoir parameters like permeability, oil viscosity and reservoir thickness.

Many oil companies are seeking cost effective answers to these questions to reduce their skyrocketing stimulation costs. Proven has found these answers using mid market simulation software by Kappa.

Kappa’s software started out as PTA analysis software but has since developed to model entire reservoirs with a numerical back end simulator.

Kappa’s simulator can now handle difficult well trajectories such as horizontal multi-fractured wells. The simulator can handle gas or oil reservoirs.

Kappa’s solution is not as simple as some of the analytical approximations in the market today. It is complex enough to deal with oil reservoirs.

On the other hand, Kappa’s simulator is less time consuming to set up than most regulator grid block simulators.

The model can be tuned with a PTA or long term production test. The model can include interference between wells and reservoir boundaries and discontinuities.

Call Proven to discuss how Kappa’s multi-fracture simulator can help you design your horizontal completion.

~Granger J. Low

With the arctic increasingly becoming a valuable natural resource and military asset, many nations have stepped forward to lay claim upon its depths.

With an estimated 30% of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 13% of the world’s undiscovered oil, international interest in the arctic should come as no surprise. However, many nations’ seeming disregard for Canadian sovereignty within our own borders has been alarming to Canadian citizens and government alike, prompting Canadian military activities in the North.

Several arctic neighbour countries including Russia, Denmark (via Greenland), and the United States (via Alaska) have made renewed claims in the arctic, some going as far as sending military jet patrols of the area.

Notably, the United States, among some other nations, has aggressively claimed that the Northwest Passage, a series of waterways between the islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, is an international waterway, while the Canadian government insists the water in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago is internal to the country.

If the United States, Denmark, or Russia lays claim to our north, what will become of the Arctic exploration leases that were drilled in the mid 70s?

Brandon Low, Proven Reserves’ communication editor, went on leave late this summer when his wife went into labour.

Brandon’s wife safely delivered a baby boy, whom they have named Ashton.

Ashton was born in early August in the mid-morning at just under 7 lbs (~3.2 kg).

Our warmest congratulations go out to Brandon, his wife, and the newest edition to their family!