American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2022 - 51

Holistic Approach
HighPeak Energy Inc. uses a holistic
approach to deploying the latest technologies
in a continual quest for ways to
improve completions and water handling
on its oil-weighted Permian Basin acreage
in Howard County, Tx.
This comprehensive approach includes
deployment of microseismic enhanced
in recent years by the advance of realtime
event observation (RTO), which has
made the technology an essential element
of completion optimization and execution
instead of a " nice to have " to be shelved
during tight times, says Chief Technology
Officer Alan R. Huffman.
Microseismic using only a single monitoring
well is typically insufficient to
obtain accurate event location data during
stimulation, so in 2021 the company deployed
it on three triangulated vertical
wells that monitored a four-well pad, accessing
data multidirectionally via vertical
arrays of geophones, he reveals.
RTO-available for review within a
minute or two during operations-was
combined with comprehensive 3-D subsurface
velocity modeling to pinpoint
within 10-20 feet the location of acoustic
events during stimulation, allowing the
company to immediately gauge treatment
effectiveness and make near-real-time adjustments,
Huffman explains. The technology
helped determine how varying
stage sequencing, pump rates and diverter
use led to different stimulation results.
" All of the adjustments we made improved
our well performance because we
did a properly integrated microseismic
program with the correct acquisition geometry
coupled with a robust 3-D earth
model for location of the events, monitoring
diagnostics as they occurred and setting
up the experiment properly to learn from
it, " Huffman says. " We looked at things
holistically with a group of technologies,
as opposed to using one technology. From
this experiment, we determined the best
approach to stimulating the specific reservoir
targets in our leasehold. "
Downhole Fiber Optics
To contribute to the long-range goal
of achieving the electric oil field concept,
HighPeak is working with a Boston company
developing a low-cost fiber optic
technology which, when commercialized,
will allow sensors to be cemented permanently
in place behind the casing.
Huffman explains that this will create a
grid of permanent monitoring wells that
provides near-field monitoring of active
stimulation operations, far-field monitoring
for earthquakes, and also enables passive
listening for long-term production signals
in the reservoirs.
" The goal of this integrated technology
approach to seismic monitoring will be
to better understand and discriminate between
acoustic emissions that are due to
stimulation operations and those that are
unintended such as the recent earthquakes
that are believed to be related to deep
disposal wells, " Huffman comments.
" When fully implemented, this approach
will complement the existing TexNet seismic
monitoring program that relies primarily
on surface seismograph stations. "
Fluid/Rock Interactions
Completion improvements also are
coming from a greater understanding of
how fluids are interacting, in some cases
negatively, with unconventional reservoirs,
Huffman offers. Freshwater or frac water
that is out of chemical equilibrium with
a reservoir-and that fails to more closely
match that of produced water from a formation-can
diminish hydrocarbon yields
because of clay swelling and other negative
interactions between reservoir rock and
fluids, he says.
HighPeak now uses almost 100%
produced water for its fracturing operations.
At its Flat Top acreage north of
the city of Big Spring, the company has
installed a 20-inch flowline to move
produced water to any locations where
it is needed for stimulation operations,
Huffman points out.
The company also routinely collects
wellbore cuttings to monitor rock/fluid
interactions and better understand chemical
reactivity in individual reservoirs with
evaluations necessary zone-by-zone because
of chemical differences, he says.
Advancing Stimulation Design
Civitas Resources is Colorado's largest
pure-play operator in the Denver-Julesburg
Basin. It was formed in 2021 from the
merger of Bonanza Creek Energy and
HighPeak Energy is using microseismic monitoring with real-time event observation
and 3-D subsurface velocity modeling to gauge stimulation treatment effectiveness
and make adjustments on the fly. HighPeak also is deploying fiber optic sensors to
create a grid of permanent monitoring wells to monitor stimulation operations, and
analyzing cuttings to evaluate rock/fluid interactions. At its Flat Top project in Howard
County, Tx., the company has installed a 20-inch flowline to transport produced water
to active frac locations.
JANUARY 2022 51
American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2022

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