SPE-185420-MS

Raageshwari Deep Gas Hydro-Fracturing Campaign, Accelerated Project

Delivery - An Example of Robust Integrated Project Management

Pranay Shrivastava, Vedant Sharma, Saurabh Anand, Ademola Otubaga, Ranjan Trivedi, Mazlan Muda, Arunabh
Parasher, Shobhit Tiwari, and Leste Aihevba, Cairn India Limited

Copyright 2017, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Oil and Gas India Conference and Exhibition held in Mumbai, India, 4–6 April 2017.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
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Abstract
This paper will describe how good project management and communications between the various project
stake holders resulted in the successful completion of the Raageshwari 15 wells fracturing campaign. The 93
fracturing stages were completed under budget and in a shorter time frame than planned. The management
of the project included multiple and diverse operations and equipment including perforating, wireline, well
testing, hydraulic fracturing, HSE, and waste water management.
The Raageshwari deep gas field (RDG) is a deep, tight, high condensate gas reservoir located in
Rajasthan, India. The 15 wells were located on 3 separate pads within 2 km radius. Their location, in a
sparsely populated arid part of India adds to the logistical challenges. Some of the key challenges during
the project were:

• Key operations such as fracturing and perforating cannot be performed at night.

• Economic handling and disposal of waste water.

• Continuous supply of water suitable for fracturing and other wellsite operations.

• Limited space available on the well pads.

• Requirement for simultaneous operations involving high risk activities such as perforating and
high pressure pumping.
• High CT cleanout frequency due to the requirement of underflushing the frac stages, close
proximity of the adjacent stages, and the small volume in the 3 ½ inch monobore completions.
• Logistics and supply chain management in a remote location.

Solutions for these obstacles included improved procedures, workflows and key technology
introductions. These included:

• Simultaneous rig up to multiple wells.

• Simultaneous operations covered through Risk assessment and controls in place.

2 SPE-185420-MS

• Selective perforation technology to reduce perforating time.

• Mechanical evaporators and a robust CSR team for waste water management.

The various optimizations resulted in a reduction in days per frac stage from 4 in the previous campaigns
to 2 in this campaign. The project was delivered with 0 LTI (Lost Time Injuries), and a phenomenal HSE
record due to robust safety procedures, frequent audits, safety drills etc.
This paper will detail how the challenges in this project were overcome resulting allowing a high speed
fracturing campaign to be successfully executed in a remote location.

Introduction
The RDG field is in southern Barmer basin, India. The reservoir depth varies from 2500 m to 3500 m
TVDSS. This reservoir is low permeability (0.01 to 1md) gas condensate reservoir. It consists of 3 distinct
layered formations, two of which are volcanic (Felsic and Basalt), with the topmost layer (Fatehgarh) being
clastic. The maximum bottom hole pressure and temperature are on the order of 5500 psig and 149 deg C
respectively. The candidate wells had a monobore design using 3 ½" 9.2 ppf P110 casing (see Figure 1).

Figure 1—Example Well Diagram.

The knowledge and results from the four previous hydraulic fracturing campaigns was used as a starting
point for this project. Since the previous 4 campaigns identified the best method for fracturing the various
zones, this campaign could focus on technical and operational optimization to improve economics.
The 2015-16 campaign comprised of multi stage fracturing using the conventional plug and perforation
method combined with post fracturing bridge plug milling, as well as well cleanup and flowback. A total
of 93 stages of fracturing in 15 wells were completed by the end of the project.
Figure 2 contains the history of the RDG fracturing campaigns with the number of wells and stages.
SPE-185420-MS 3

Figure 2—RDG Fracturing History (Well Fractured and Number of Stages)

Well location and Inter-Pad movement (IPM)

The RDG reservoirs are accessed from well pads containing multiple gas producing wells on each pad.
The 15 wells targeted in this campaign were located on Pads 01, 04 and 05. These pads are within a 2 km
radius (see Figure 3).

Figure 3—RDG Field Well Pad Map

Contractors usually transport well services equipment in convoys between locations. Since these well
pads are located on opposite sides of a State Highway additional precautions had to be taken to ensure safe
movement of these long fracturing convoys.
The fracturing equipment consisted of 6 high pressure pumping units, 1 blender, 1 hydration unit, 1
control cabin, additional supporting fleet (CT, Well Test, E-line) and 13 frac tanks. The movement of this
fleet (IPM) required an average of 6 days. While it is best to minimize IPMs to avoid Non Productive Time
(NPT), unplanned incidents forced two visits in two different pads (see Figure 4). A total of four IPMs
requiring 24 days were made during the campaign (see Figure 5).
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Figure 4—Inter-Pad Movement (IPM)

Figure 5—Fracs placed and IPM (Inter pad movement) –month wise data

While the number of IPM's in future campaigns should be minimized, the time required per IPM must
also be reduced. A study of IPM time revealed that a large share of time is consumed in tank movement and
water filling. Even though a lot of the operations occur simultaneously, one operating day per IPM could
be saved if a second set of tanks were already available on the 2nd location. Based on the rental costs for
tanks, this would reduce costs even with the limited number of moves.

Operations Sequence Optimization

Each well completion consisted of the following components:
1. Well preparation
2. Stage Completion (repeated for each stage)
a. Well Cleanout
b. Perforating
c. Pumping operations (Step Rate Test (SRT) and fracturing)
d. Temperature surveys
e. Stage isolation using composite bridge plugs (BP)
3. Milling of Bridge Plugs
4. Flow back through Surface Well Testing Equipment (SWT)
SPE-185420-MS 5

Since the operations occurred sequentially in short duration, four units of equipment had to be available
onsite all the time (Frac Fleet, SWT, Wireline and CTU (coiled tubing unit)). With all this equipment on
location, optimization of the completion sequence was critical to minimize standby and non productive time
(NPT).
There were many constraints (or boundary conditions) under which these operations had to be conducted.
For example, perforating at night on land is prohibited by law in India. The same is true for fracturing
operations. Hence it was important that the schedule maximized the daylight time available for both
perforating and fracturing relegating the other operations to the night.

Figure 6—Well Operations

The following solutions were implemented:

• Simultaneous rig up of two wells for fracturing (see Figure 8 and Figure 9) to minimize impact of
delays in due to non fracturing operations.
• Legal activities temperature survey, wireline dummy run and CT well bore cleanout were planned
in night
• Fracturing and perforating were executed during the day. See Figure 7 for a typical operational
schedule
• No night HMV movements were allowed.

While one well was being fractured, the other well was being perforated. A third well was also kept ready
in case of any well problems in the primary two wells. In this manner, even if one well was waiting for a
cleanout, there were two wells which could be fractured. The CT unit managed cleanout treatments at night.
6 SPE-185420-MS

Figure 7—Typical Operation Schedule

Equipment Layout
Equipment layout and operational sequencing were critical for the rapid execution of the campaign. Figure
8 and Figure 9 contain the layouts for the equipment on a typical well pad. In general, it was relatively easy
to locate the fracturing equipment. It was harder to place the well test equipment so that it could achieve
the following:

• Rigged up from 3 wells.

• Take well returns during wellbore cleanout and bridge plug milling.

• Maintain stable wellhead pressures during bridge plug milling operations.

• Minimize gas flaring.

• Minimize condensate handling on well pads.

This layout and associated procedures were designed to minimize issues of choke jamming and
contingency well shut downs during coiled tubing based bridge milling, which occurred in previous
campaigns. (Utkarsh, 2016) has discussed the evolution of layout change to accommodate all the
functionalities.

Well Testing Equipment

Figure 8 contains a diagram of the well testing equipment layout. The choke on choke manifold A4 was
kept fully open and was lined up to trash catcher (A5). The trash catcher (A5) removed most of the milled
debris and proppant from the main stream. Choke manifold # 2 (A6) continuously flushed the solid contents
from the trash catcher to the waste pit. The operation of choke manifold #2 (A6) was managed to maintain
a constant wellhead pressure. Maintaining a stable differential pressure across downhole motor is required
for efficient bridge plug milling (Utkarsh, 2016).
The oil, gas and water returns from top of trash catcher were than routed through sand filter (A7) to
remove any sand which might have passed through the trash catcher. The pressure of returns was regulated
by Choke manifold #3 (A8). The returns were taken to indirect water bath heater (A9) and then the 3 phase
separator (A10). The water returns from separator went to Surge tank (A11) and then to the flare pit and
waste pit. The gas and condensate returns were taken in to production header (A12).
The use of trash catcher (A5) before sand filter (A7) eliminated many of the problems associated with
sand filter plugging and the requirement for bypassing the system to the flare. Piping the condensate and gas
SPE-185420-MS 7

outlets from the separator to the pipeline eliminated flaring and hazards associated with handling condensate
at the well pad. The separator was operated at a pressure of 750 psig which was 50 psi higher than the
gas header pressure. The gas and condensate returns were taken into production header through non-return
valves.

Figure 8—Well Testing Layout

Coiled Tubing and Wireline Units

CT and wireline units were located on the either side of wells. The dimensions of the units are critical
for optimum wellsite placement. The smallest units required for the job should be contracted. In addition,
all critical operations such as fishing need to be considered to ensure that the correct downhole tools and
lubricators are readily available.

Fracturing Fleet
Due to the limited space on the well pads and the limited number IPMs, skid pumping units (designed
for offshore use) were used instead of the larger truck mounted land units. This provided the additional
room required for rigging up the CT, Wireline, and Well Test spreads. The reduction in cost, by having
the equipment available for Simultaneous Operations (SIMOPS), well exceeded the cost of added time in
spotting the skid units. The layout of the fracturing equipment appears in Figure 9.
8 SPE-185420-MS

Figure 9—Typical Raageshwari Well Pad Frac Fleet Layout

Some of the salient features about fracturing operations were:

1. Due to space constraints proppant could not be stored at the well site. Proppant was stored at the
contractor's base and transported to the pads in 20 metric ton mobile silos. The proppant was hauled
to well site during the day and transferred to the proppant handler after the frac at night.
2. Chemicals for a number of frac jobs were stored on the well site with proper containment. All fire
fighting controls were put in place and tested during safety drills.
3. Each fracturing stage required an average 3000 bbls of water. In previous campaigns, small 35 bbls
tankers were used to haul water to the well site. Had this been continued, this campaign would have
required about 8000 tanker trips. For this campaign, a pipeline from a water well in Raageshwari
processing plant was extended to all three well pads.

Waste water management

It is of paramount importance to plan for possible water generation and its timely disposal for timely
completion of project. A poorly planned waste water disposal plan can halt the campaign with catastrophic
impact on the economics. The campaign was anticipated to generate waste water during three operations,
well bore cleanout, bridge plug milling operations, and post fracturing flow back for cleanup. table 1 contains
a summary of the estimated waste water generated in each of the main activities.

Table 1—Estimated Waste Water Generation

Activity Water generated

1 CT well bore cleanout ~25000 bbls

2 Bridge plug milling operations

3 Well flowback for fracture cleanup ~42000 bbls

Total ~67000 bbls

SPE-185420-MS 9

Waste water generated at frac sites was stored in temporary pits at the well pads. Vaccum trucks
transferred the water from the pads to the one of the many solar evaporation pits. Mechanical evaporators
were used at each site to enhance the evaporation operations. Figure 9 below depicts one such evaporator
in operation. These evaporators were powered with generator sets on these remote locations and helped to
dispose off up to 2300 bbls of water per week.

Figure 10—Mechanical evaporator – waste water managment

Managing SIMOPs
Cairn India's guidelines on SIMOPs were followed and each activity in fracturing, well testing, coiled tubing
and wireline operations were discussed with respect to compatibility with other operations, interference with
other operations, and limitations of parallel operations. The method is a standard process across industry.
Once the guidelines were determined, a flag system was instigated which allowed all of the groups to know
what could and could not be done at any given time. This system provided a tangible approach to SIMOPs
management.
Three colored flags – Red, yellow and green were given to all service contractors. All the units were
asked to hoist the flags high with an appropriate color to indicate the nature of their current operations.
Table 2 contains a cross reference of the flags and their meanings.

Table 2—Flag System

For example, when gun arming happens at wireline unit, it hoists a red flag. Likewise, during high
pressure fracturing operations, the frac fleet hoists a red flag (see Figure 11). On the other hand, while
mixing chemical and filling proppant, a yellow flag is hoisted.
10 SPE-185420-MS

Figure 11—Flag System: Example – Red Flag, Frac in Progress

Bridge Plug Setting and Milling

Composite bridge plugs designed for rapid drilling were used to isolate frac stages. These wireline set
bridge plugs had cast iron slips, ceramic gripping buttons, brass shear pins, brass mandrel liners, brass anti-
extrusion rings and rubber packing element. At night after the post frac operations like temperature surveys
were completed, a dummy run for the bridge plug was made. At first light, the actual bridge plug was run
into the hole and set. One out of the 78 bridge plugs resulted in a stuck plug that had to be fished. This
resulted in temporarily aborting operations in the well until a fishing plan was finalized. In this case, having
the 3rd well ready to go eliminated most of the potential NPT. In some cases, the presence of unbroken gel
hindered the running of the bridge plug and it would have to be removed from the well until the gel broke or
could be cleaned out. Special precautions to avoid explosive de-compression need to be taken while pulling
out of hole with a BP that was not set.

• After stationing the bridge plug in lubricator, pressure can be bled to 1500 psig.

• After 1500 psig, pressure bleeding should be in steps of 100 psig with 10 minute stop duration.

Significant optimization in BP milling time occurred throughout the project. The campaign started with
long milling times due to inability to monitor differential pressure across positive displacement motors
(PDMs). This occurred due to frequent jamming of sacrificial choke (see Figure 13). Inclusion of trash
catcher and a choke manifold#2 in the setup improved the bridge milling efficiency.
A 2-1/8" outside diameter, 5/6 lobe format, 6 stage PDM was used. The maximum rate that could be
pumped was 1.2 bpm. PDMs are available in standard, oversize (OS) and double oversize power sections
(2XOS). Due to high temperatures OS and 2X OS sizes were used. Five and six bladed concave mills with
outside diameter up to 95% of tubing size were used in campaign. Figure 12 contains a photo of a 5 bladed
mill.
SPE-185420-MS 11

Figure 12—5 bladed concave mill

Figure 13—Milled debris of bridge plugs

Problems with PDMs stalling downhole and swollen stators were frequent. Many PDMs could not serve
even 20% of their life cycle. PDMs were redressed in field but without a torque testing bench there was no
way to know if the redressed motors could generate the required torque. Future projects should ensure that
a torque testing facility is available near the operations' site to eliminate this uncertainty.
12 SPE-185420-MS

Wireline Perforating
Limited entry targeting 3 to 6 perforation clusters per frac stage was used throughout the project (Tiwari,
2017). At the start of the campaign this required as separate perforation run for each cluster. At 4 hours per
run, on average only 3 runs could be made in a day which meant that more than one day was required for
the longer intervals. A significant improvement occurred mid campaign with the introduction of selective
firing switches. This allowed up to 4 clusters to be perforated in a single run which opened the door for
more than about 4 stages.

Fracturing
The fracturing fluid used in the treatments was a 35 (lb/1000) borate crosslinked guar with encapsulated
breaker to break the fluid after 200 minutes required time (viscosity greater than 100 cP at 100 sec-1). The
proppants used were 20/40 and 16/30 mesh intermediate strength proppant ISP. A typical pump schedule
appears in Table 3.

Table 3—Typical pump schedule

Stage Fluid Type Proppant Type Prop Conc. Prop Mass Cum Prop Stage Volume

(lbs/gal) (lbs) (lbs) (bbl)

1 Cooling Pad 0 - - 80

2 35# HT Borate 0 - - 800

5 35# HT Borate 20/40 ISP 0.5 2,678 2,678 130

6 35# HT Borate 20/40 ISP 1 5,257 7,935 130

7 35# HT Borate 20/40 ISP 2 10,137 18,073 130

8 35# HT Borate 20/40 ISP 3 15,809 18,073 140

9 35# HT Borate 20/40 ISP 4 21,829 55,710 150

10 35# HT Borate 20/40 ISP 5 29,923 85,633 170

11 35# HT Borate 20/40 ISP 6 36,828 122,462 180

12 35# HT Borate 20/40 ISP 6 30,923 153,385 150

13 35# HT Borate 20/40 ISP 7 35,015 188,401 150

14 35# HT Borate 20/40 ISP 7.5 61,600 250,000 250

Each well had an average 6-7 stages, where each stage was underflushed by 1 bbls to avoid overflush.
Some problems that surfaced during fracturing campaign are listed below:
1. The water well supplied a higher salinity water with a high Boron content. This fluid was more
difficult to gel and crosslink. More than 60 lab tests were required to develop a workable fluid
system with adequate properties. The presence of the Boron reduced the crosslink delay time,
increasing the overall friction and reducing the maximum rate.
2. Fisheyes were observed in the tank of the dry polymer hydration unit. This was believed to be a
contributing factor in the stuck bridge plug incident. Changes in the guar supply and unit operating
procedures resolved the issue. This highligted the importance of monitoring fluid and inspecting
and testing each lot of chemical arriving on well site.
3. With a 1 bbl underflush, the expected tubing fill was 35 metres. In some cases, proppant was tagged
high by 35 to 70 m covering the bridge plug setting depth. This meant that the displacement was
off by 1 to 2 bbls. This resulted in time consuming cleanout operations.
SPE-185420-MS 13

Cost impact due to operational efficiency

The fifth and latest campaign delivered a record 93 fracs in 180 days with 0 LTIs, and only 5 screenouts.
Costs per frac were reduced by 49% when compared to the last two campaigns. The savings were achieved
in 3 areas:
1. Contractual Savings – due to reduced supply and services cost.
2. Operational Efficiency – all the points mentioned in this paper.
3. Design Optimizations – cluster perforation, combination of steps like using the frac cooling pad
for step rate tests rather than a separate pumping operation, etc.
The Figure 14 shows that operational efficiency contributed the largest share of 23%. These savings
generated due to operation efficiency provides a testimony as how a robust project management approach
can make a difference.

Figure 14—Cost reduction breakdown to achieve 50% reduction.

Conclusions
The following conclusions were drawn from the RDG fracturing campaign that helped to deliver campaign
at a record speed.

LOGISTICS
1. Minimize Inter Pad Movement.
2. Reduce IPM time with measures like mobilizing additional water storage tanks.

OPERATIONAL SCHEDULING
• Rigging up to more than one well at a time saves significant time.

• Perform non critical activities at night: (temperature surveys, wireline dummy run and CT well
bore).
• Key activities which must be performed during the day like fracturing and perforating are
prioritized so there is no waiting time.
14 SPE-185420-MS

EQUIPMENT LAYOUT
• Inclusion of trash catcher and sand filter before the choke manifold greatly improved milling
operations.
• Arrangements made to pump produced gas and condensate into header eliminated flaring of gas
and handling of less stable condensate on well pads.
• Crane load bearing capabilities and boom length should be studied well in advance to tackle
unlikely events of equipment fishing from hole.
• Proppant hauling to site was conducted with mobile sand silos to eliminate proppant storage at site.

• Chemical placement methodology was developed to audit chemical placements at well site.

FLAG SYSTEM
• An innovative approach to manage SIMOPS were made using colored flag system where colored
flags on unit showed criticality of operations.

BRIDGE PLUG SETTING & MILLING

• In an event of misfired Bridge plug, while pulling out of hole, recommendations on explosive
decompression of rubber elements should be considered.
• Stable wellhead pressures should be maintained to understand the differential pressure across
PDMs.
• Torque testing bench facility should be installed and tested in field before the onset of milling
campaigns.

WIRELINE PERFORATION
• Selective firing switches were used to perform cluster perforation which could help to perform as
much as 4 events of perforations in one run. This helped in realizing goal of 1 frac per 2 days rate
for entire campaign.

FRACTURING
• Limited entry technique helped successfully to cater numerous laminated pays in minimum stages.

References
Tiwari. (2017, January). SPE 184846 MS Cracking the Volcanic Rocks in India Substantial Benefits From Continuous
Improvements Over 11 Years and 100 Fracturing Treatments. SPE. Woodlads, Texas, USA: Society of Petroleum
Engineers.
Utkarsh. (2016). IPTC-18728-MS Optimized Coiled Tubing Based Milling of Multiple Composite thru tubing Bridge
Plugs in High Condensate Hydraulically Fractured Deep Gas Wells – A Case Study. IPTC. Thailand: Society of
Petroleum Engineers.