Experimental study on an innovative proppant placement method for channel fracturing technique

Key words:  fracturing  soluble proppant  flow conductivity  channel ratio

Abstract:

In order to simplify the proppant placement procedure during the application of the high flow channel fracturing technique and reduce the requirements on high pumping rate and high fiber quality, an innovative proppant placement method that adopts discontinuous proppant pumping and packing in fractures was proposed. The feasibility of this method was verified via a visual experiment. The flow conductivity of the proppant packed channel with discontinuous proppant placements was analyzed using a standard API fracture flow conductivity device. The results show that the new method can form discontinuous packed layer in the fracture channel using different proportional soluble proppants, in which high flow conductivity was observed under both low and high pressure conditions (5 MPa and 60 MPa). The higher of the soluble proppant ratio and size, the higher of the channel conductivity is. The influence factors on the flow conductivity of the discontinuous packed layer include the shrinking of the fracture channels, the compaction and crush of the proppants. The channel shrinking and proppant compaction can be induced at low closure pressures, while the crush of the proppants can occur at high closure pressures.