American Oil and Gas Reporter - November 2019 - 57

SpecialReport: Marcellus/Utica Activity
more aggressive with LE designs on subsequent wells, utilizing as few as 27 perforations (where we were rate-limited).
Based on our observations, it is possible
to be more aggressive in the LE design
in the heel of the lateral than in the toe,
where measured depth elevates pipe friction. We are having success breaking the
lateral into thirds and utilizing different
VSC designs for each segment consisting
of 34 perforations in the toe third of the
lateral, 30 perforations in the middle
third, and 27 perforations in the heel
third of the lateral.
Unfortunately, it is not yet possible to
verify the production impact of these
perforating scheme changes. Rockdale is
still delineating its field, and production
across it varies. Compounding this is the
fact that we are actively optimizing other
elements of our completion design, such
as sand loading. The combination of these
factors means we do not have a representative apples-to-apples comparison to
evaluate the production impact of the
perforating scheme changes. However,
there have been encouraging results mitigating frac hits with more aggressive
LE designs.
One well utilized a five-cluster VSC
perforating scheme, averaging 38 perforations on 21 stages adjacent to a producing well pad. Of the total water
volume pumped in those 21 stages, 2.7%
was recovered as increased water pro-

duction on a well 1,000 feet away, and
0.3% was recovered as increased water
production on a well 2,000 feet away,
for a total of 3.0% water recovery in
offset producing laterals.
Another well used an eight-cluster
VSC perforating scheme with an average
of 30 perforations on 48 adjacent stages.
In this case, 2.3% of the total water
volume pumped was recovered from a
well 1,000 feet away and no increased

water production was seen in a well 2,000
feet away. On a normalized basis, this
represents a 23% reduction in water recovered in offset producing wells, and
the impact radius decreased from 2,000
to 1,000 feet. We attribute this to longer
fracture half-lengths in the five-cluster
well, where four of the five clusters were
taking the majority of the treatment, as
opposed to the treatment being evenly
distributed in the eight-cluster well. ❒

MATT FRY is geologic superviser
at Rockdale Marcellus LLC. He has
more than 10 years of experience in
operations and technical advising. Fry
holds a B.S. in geology from Youngstown
State University and an M.S. in geology
from Northern Arizona University.
ADAM ALTIERI has eight years of
engineering experience in upstream
energy operations, specializing in the
Marcellus and Utica shales. Most recently, Altieri served as a completions
engineer II for Noble Energy, where
he was responsible for performing economic analyses of completion projects,
and designing and overseeing the completions of 120 wells in Pennsylvania
and West Virginia. Prior to Noble Energy, Altieri served as a completions
engineer for EOG Resources. He holds
a B.S in mechanical engineering from
Pennsylvania State University.
NOVEMBER 2019 57

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American Oil and Gas Reporter - November 2019

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