Curtis Wendler

Testing and Production Performance of Slim-Hole Wells

The petroleum industry is focusing on cost reduction and efficiency more than it ever had. Slim-hole drilling and completion technology offer significant cost reduction potentials to the oil and gas industry. To provide an insight into slim-hole technology, production, stimulation, conformance, perforation, and testing aspects of reservoirs with wellbore and completion string diameters of less than conventionally drilled and completed wells are detailed here. Productivity of both horizontal and vertical slim-hole wells, with and without hydraulic fractures, is compared with wells having standard wellbore sizes. Comparisons with conventional sized wellbores will be given that concern: (1) wellbore hydraulics, including nodal analysis and minimum gas rates required to lift fluids off the well, (2) the effect of wellbore diameter on transient pressure testing, and (3) coning and cresting problems. The performance of slim-hole wells compares favorably to standard wellbore completions for the parameters investigated in this study.