SPE 151800

Perforated Completion Optimization Using a New, Enhanced and Integrated

Perforating Job Design Tool
Lang Zhan, SPE, Fokko Doornbosch, SPE, Andy Martin, SPE, Jeremy Harvey, SPE, and Brenden Grove, SPE,
Schlumberger

Copyright 2012, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE International Symposium and Exhibition on Formation Damage Control held in Lafayette, Louisiana, USA, 15–17 February 2012.

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 of the paper have not been
reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its
officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to
reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.

Abstract

Optimizing the performance of a perforated completion requires reliably estimating two groups of parameters: (a) perforation
tunnel geometry, particularly depth of penetration (DoP); (b) the condition of perforation tunnels (fill and crushed zone
damage). A recent industry survey showed that existing DoP algorithms, which were all based on conversion of surface
concrete results to downhole stressed rock penetrations, have shortcomings. Most of the surveyed perforating design tools
substantially overestimate stressed rock DoP. In addition, a vast and growing amount of laboratory and field data is revealing
that the post-perforation tunnel damage primarily depends on dynamic rather than static underbalance condition. Yet the
industry still lacks a reliable and practical algorithm to estimate post-perforation tunnel damage for dynamic underbalance
(DUB) perforating. Furthermore, existing perforating design tools usually do not handle multi-zone completions or variations
of formation properties along the wellbore.

This paper describes a perforating job design process and software tool that seamlessly integrates a newly developed DoP
model, a simple but robust algorithm to calculate post-perforation tunnel damage for dynamic underbalanced perforating, and
a reliable model to reflect 3D fluid flow around the perforations. The new DoP model was constructed exclusively based on
rigorous laboratory tests for each individual charge in different rocks under downhole conditions, rather than converted from
surface concrete results. The transient pressure properties from a comprehensive wellbore dynamics simulator can be loaded
into the planning tool for perforation tunnel damage estimation. The perforation skin algorithm due to DUB was developed
through a combination of extensive flow tests, conducted in state-of-the-art facilities, and 3D numerical simulations. The
integrated perforating design tool provides zonal productivity estimations for single or multi-zone settings. It also introduces
an option to compute perforating parameters (penetration and perforation skin) along the borehole with variable formation
properties obtained from well log data. The streamlined design workflow and integrated environment allows users to optimize
perforating jobs with minimum efforts. The paper includes two field examples that demonstrate the software applications.

Introduction

Cased and perforated completions are dominant among a variety of well completion techniques around the world. The quality
of a perforating job is very important for the entire well completion, and subsequent reservoir stimulation and other well
service operations. Because a significantly large portion of pressure loss usually occurs around the vicinity of perforations and
near borehole region, the characteristic of perforations also strongly affects well productivity and/or injectivity. A perforated
completion must be carefully designed and optimized in order to achieve full potential of a well. However, it has long been
recognized that optimizing a perforated completion is not a simple task because productivity and injectivity performance of a
perforated well involves complicated interactions among formation rock, reservoir fluids, wellbore condition and gun systems
used in operations (McDowell and Muskat, 1950; Bell et al. 1972; Bell et al. 1995; Walton et al. 2001; Grove et al. 2011a).
Proper optimization of a perforated completion requires comprehensive knowledge and deep understanding of the
relationships among all influencing factors. Particularly, it requires reliably estimating two critical parameters, DoP and
perforation tunnel damage, and accurately modeling their effects in 3D dynamic fluid flow on well productivity.
2 SPE 151800

Perforation geometry, specifically, depth of penetration, was the first to be identified as one of the most important parameters
that determine productivity of perforated completions. Improving and predicting the depth of penetration from a perforator has
been a focal point of research ever since invention of the perforating technology (Thompson, 1962; Ott et al., 1994). Various
factors that affect the DoP in rocks have been investigated (Bell et al. 1995) and many penetration models were proposed and
routinely applied by commercial software tools, such as the one developed by the authors (Schlumberger, 2011), to perforating
operations. Surprisingly, a recent industry survey showed that existing DoP algorithms, which were all based on conversion of
surface concrete results to downhole stressed rock penetrations, have non-negligible shortcomings (Behrmann et al. 2009).
Most of the surveyed perforating design tools substantially overestimate the DoP in stressed rocks. Furthermore, the predicted
penetrations among those surveyed models have large differences, leading to substantially different estimates of well
performances. Aimed at resolving the discrepancies related to the traditional DoP models, a new algorithm was proposed to
calculate shaped charge penetration under downhole conditions. The model was developed exclusively based on a vast amount
of lab tests in various rocks with different strengths under a variety of stress conditions (Harvey et al. 2010). Because of its
imperative importance to perforating, DoP is still one of the central areas in current perforating technology studies (Harvey et
al. 2010; Harvey et al. 2012a).

In addition to the depth of penetration, it was later found that the productivity of a cased and perforated well is affected by a
layer of compacted, lower permeable zone (sometimes called the crushed zone) around perforations compared with the
original rock permeability (Bell et al., 1972; Weeks, 1974; Klotz et al. 1974). This perforation crushed zone, when it exists,
substantially reduces productive capacity of a well. Extensive studies have been carried out to mitigate and quantify the effect
of the crushed zone. Static underbalance, which utilizes a lower wellbore fluid pressure than the reservoir fluid pressure before
perforating, was proved to be useful to mitigate the crushed zone damage and to improve well productivity (King et al. 1986;
Halleck and Deo, 1989; Behrmann, 1996). Recently, a new physics, dynamic underbalance, which occurs due to gun filling
during very early time right after charge detonation, has been demonstrated to be much more effective than static underbalance
in crushed zone removal and well productivity improvement (Walton, et al. 2001; Behrmann et al. 2002; Stenhaug et al. 2003).
Because dynamic underbalance can occur with a large magnitude regardless of whether static under or over balance exists in
the wellbore, it provides a significantly flexible and safe way to enhance well productivity in perforating operations. This
fundamental discovery has opened up an exciting, but also very challenging, new area in perforating evaluation and
optimization. So far, great progress has been made in understanding and modeling dynamic underbalance effects on the
perforation damage removal (Grove et al. 2011a; Grove et al. 2011b; Harvey et al. 2012a), which allows more confident
prediction and evaluation of well productivity through optimizing every aspect of a perforating operation.

When the DoP and perforation tunnel damage are known, the third major issue in perforated well productivity evaluation is to
handle the unique, complicated fluid flow around perforation tunnels. From the very beginning of perforating technology
development, people realized that the spiral characteristics of perforation patterns render complicated 3D fluid flow near the
wellbore, which substantially affects well production. Conventional and simple formulae that work well for openhole single
layer formations are not applicable to flow estimation of a perforated well (Muskat, 1943). The development of evaluation
algorithms was concentrated on how to reasonably approximate the 3D fluid flow around perforations for productivity
estimation (McDowell and Muskat, 1950; Howard and Watson, 1950; Harris, 1966). Along with the astonishing progress in
computer technology since the 1960s, detailed 3D numerical simulations were applied to perforated well completions to obtain
more accurate flow dynamics and well productivity (Hong 1975; Locke 1981; McLeod, 1983; Tariq 1987; Tariq et al. 1989).
These numerical simulations culminated in the semi-analytical productivity solution developed by Karakas and Tariq (1991).
Although several notable efforts were made to improve the model with numerical and analytical solutions (Dugolu, 1998;
Anseh et al. 2002; Yildiz, 2006; Atkinson et al. 2009; Sun et al. 2011), no major issues have been identified. A few
discrepancies between the model and numerical simulation results were primarily because of different, usually unrealistic,
assumptions used in the numerical simulations rather than defects of the semi-analytical model. The classical work by Karakas
and Tariq has been the cornerstone for productivity estimation of perforated completions in virtually all commercial industry
tools, whether they are developed for perforating design and optimization, or for nodal and well performance analysis.

Determining penetration depth, perforation tunnel damage and conducting perforating productivity estimation involves great
number of parameters and complex processes. These processes include convolving shaped charge jet penetration, rock yield
and failure, transient fluid flow among formation, wellbore and gun systems etc. To efficiently handle these complicities, it is
necessary to have a workflow that assimilates all individual physics to provide a unified solution for perforating optimizations.
This paper describes a perforating design process and user friendly software tool that seamlessly integrates a newly developed
DoP model and a simple but robust algorithm to calculate post-perforation tunnel damage for dynamic underbalanced
perforating. The transient pressure properties were obtained from a comprehensive wellbore dynamics simulator and are
loaded into the planning tool. The perforation tunnel damage is estimated by a new skin algorithm that fully takes into account
the DUB effect. This new skin model was developed through a combination of extensive flow tests, conducted in state-of-the-
art facilities, and 3D numerical simulations. One of the notable features of the integrated perforating design tool is that it not
only handles traditional single layer perforating design, but also provides zonal productivity estimations for multi-zone
settings. Furthermore, it introduces an option to compute perforating parameters (penetration and perforation skin) along the
SPE 151800 3

borehole with variable formation properties obtained from well log data. The streamlined design workflow and integrated
environment allow users to optimize perforating jobs with minimum efforts. Case histories will be discussed below to
demonstrate the software applications.

Integrated Perforating Optimization Processes

The objective of a perforating design is to obtain an optimized gun system that can provide the best value to operators. The
design involves the following sequential and iterative processes for a typical perforating operation: (a) data collection; (b)
penetration depth, casing entrance-hole size and perforation tunnel diameter estimation; (c) perforation tunnel condition
assessment; (d) well productivity calculation or gun performance evaluation. Fig. 1 outlines the general workflow and
processes of perforating optimization, and will be discussed in details in this section.

Data Collection
The first task of perforating optimization is to gather the required reservoir, wellbore and perforating system data. Depending
on the level of optimization processes, the amount of the required data is different. In this paper, only standard perforating
processes will be discussed. Extensive field observations, laboratory tests, and 3D finite element simulations have been
conducted over the last six decades to understand the important parameters and properties that affect the flow efficiency of a
perforated completion (Bell et al. 1972; Bell et al. 1995). These critical affecting factors or properties can be broadly
categorized in the following four areas, each of which further includes multiple parameters:
• Reservoir and formation properties: (a) rock mechanical properties; (b) stress conditions; (c) rock type; (d)
permeability; (e) porosity; (f) anisotropy; (g) heterogeneity, such as laminations and fractures; (h) formation fluid
properties (reservoir fluid pressure, fluid viscosity, reservoir temperature etc);
• Near wellbore formation and flow conditions: (a) drilling fluid invasion and particle migration (near wellbore
formation damage radius and severity); (b) near wellbore fluid flow condition (laminated or turbulent flow);
• Well and wellbore conditions: (a) wellbore geometry; (b) tubing and cement specifications; (c) wellbore fluid
properties; (d) wellbore orientation and deviation; (e) wellbore fluid pressure condition with respect to reservoir fluid
pressure; (f) gravel packing and/or screen setup properties;
• Charge, gun and tool string system: (a) charge type; (b) charge size; (c) gun type; (d) gun size; (e) charge loading
pattern such as phasing and shot density as shown in Fig. 2; (f) other related tools on the string; (g) tool string setup
condition (centered or eccentered, detailed geometries etc).

Penetration Depth, Entrance-hole Size and Perforation Tunnel Diameter Estimation

When the above data are available, the second step is to estimate depth of penetration, entrance-hole size and tunnel diameter
for each shaped charge in the gun string. The importance of the DoP and tunnel diameter cannot be overstressed in evaluating
well productivity (production flow rate for a given drawdown pressure). Fig. 3 shows productivity ratio vs. DoP results for a
hypothetical well with 4 shots per foot (spf) and 0 and 90 degree phasings. The productivity ratio here is defined as perforated
completion productivity divided by open-hole well productivity. Note that perforation crushed zone, wellbore damaged zone
and near wellbore flow turbulence are not considered in the simulations. It’s clear that well productivity strongly depends on
penetration depth while only moderately depends on tunnel diameter. It should be pointed out the perforation tunnel diameter
is a preliminary value with assumption of absence of dynamic and/or static balance. This value is subject to further refinement
in the later perforating optimization processes. In fact, it cannot be reliably determined without considering perforation tunnel
clean-up and the dynamic and static underbalance condition, which will be evaluated in the next process of perforating design.
Consequently, the tunnel diameter is not emphasized at this stage. Phasing also has a very large effect on productivity ratio as
revealed in Fig. 3, but it is a known parameter without uncertainty. This implies the penetration depth is the primary parameter
that should be obtained as accurately as possible to assess perforated well productivity.

Although industry has been investigating the penetration depth of shaped charges since their early application to well
completion (Bell et al. 1995), unfortunately, a reliable penetration model seems to be still elusive based on a major finding in a
recent survey (Behrmann et al. 2009). DoP results obtained from the surveyed perforating design tools had large differences
for the same hypothetical gun system and perforating condition. More importantly, most of the surveyed software programs
substantially overestimated the penetration, some more than 100 percent. This inaccurate penetration depth will induce large
uncertainty in well productivity estimation according to productivity index vs. penetration results illustrated in Fig. 3. It also
may lead to mismanagement of well completion operations and field production. As identified by Behrmann et al. (2009), the
major reason for the unreliable models that are being widely used in industry is reliance on unstressed surface concrete
penetration, i.e., API Section 1 test results, in predicting penetration depth in downhole stressed rock condition. This
traditional method is both unreliable and misleading because it has been shown in laboratory tests that a charge with a deeper
penetration in a surface unstressed concrete test may not have a deeper penetration in the stressed rock. To tackle this issue, we
have developed a much more reliable penetration model (Harvey et al. 2010; Harvey et al. 2012b), which was constructed
4 SPE 151800

exclusively using penetration results in stressed rocks. It is this improved DoP result that makes the following perforating
optimization possible.

Perforation Tunnel Condition Assessment

After penetration depth is obtained, the next step is to quantify perforation tunnel condition, such as perforation damage or
crushed zone damage, tunnel fills, clean tunnel length and refined perforation tunnel diameter. These parameters strongly
influence well productivity. Fig. 4 shows the effect of crushed zone impairment and wellbore drilling damage on well
productivity ratio. The case with kc/k = 0.1 can reduce well production by as much as 40% from the no crushed zone condition
of kc/k = 1. However, obtaining these parameters related to the perforation tunnel condition is very challenging and requires a
deep understanding of the coupled hydro-mechanical processes involving rock yield and failure and transient fluid flow
dynamics among formation, wellbore and gun system. Static underbalance has been the traditional technique to create surge
flow after perforating for reducing the crushed zone and wellbore damages (King et al. 1986; Behrmann, 1996). Recently,
dynamic underbalance was found to be much more effective and efficient to remove the crushed zone damage (Walton, et al.
2001; Behrmann et al. 2002; Stenhaug et al. 2003). Significant effort has been made to properly simulate the transient pressure
and the loading force during dynamic underbalance perforating (Baumann and Williams 2010). At the same time, extensive
laboratory experiments have been performed to establish relationships between the formation and wellbore flow dynamics and
the perforation tunnel conditions (i.e. perforation damage, clean tunnel length and tunnel diameter etc) (Grove et al. 2011a;
Harvey et al. 2012). Integrating the transient wellbore pressure data and the perforation clean-up model due to DUB in
perforation tunnel characterization, those parameters of perforation tunnel condition can be obtained for dynamic underbalance
perforating.

Well Productivity Calculation and Gun Performance Evaluation

The final step of perforating optimization is to calculate well productivity and evaluate gun system performance. Perforation
specifications, which include perforation phasing, shot density, tunnel geometry, tunnel damage condition etc, are fed into a
unified well productivity model. This model is primarily based on the semi-analytical solution developed by Karakas and
Tariq (1991) with various modifications and improvements. It takes into account non-Darcy skin near perforation tunnels due
to high flow velocity, and the clean perforation tunnel length, a new parameter for perforation tunnel characterization (Grove
et al. 2011b). It is also capable of handling a deviated or horizontal well in multi-phase flow and multi-layer reservoir
condition. Application of this model results in obtaining a variety of indicators and parameters that define the entire inflow
capability of a perforated completion:
• Productivity ratio;
• Productivity index;
• Production rate;
• Total effective skin;
• Darcy skin;
• Non-Darcy skin;
• Perforation skin;
• Crushed zone skin;
• Deviation skin;
• Partially opening skin.

These well productivity indicators, along with the perforation geometry and gun shock loading obtained from earlier
processes, provide a complete set of data and information for rigorous and detailed gun performance evaluation and
perforating optimization. Many times, people just compare gun systems through their final total skins, productivity indexes,
productivity ratios or flow rates for a perforating job. This is inferior because a high total skin or a low productivity index may
be induced by one or multiple reasons, such as a large non-Darcy effect, a high pressure loss around perforations due to 3D
converging flow, low permeability in the compacted zone, and partially opening of a production zone. Each of these reasons
may require a distinct solution in order to optimize the perforating system and well production. For example, if a low PI is due
to kc/k impairment, then redesigning the perforating system to deliver a stronger DUB may be the best solution to remove the
compacted zone damage and improve the well productivity. If the low production is due to the non-Darcy skin rather than a
large crushed zone skin, then using different charges with higher shot density and/or deeper penetration may be a viable choice
for the perforating job.

In addition to estimating the characteristic indicators of well productivity given above, sensitivity analyses of a number of
inputted parameters can further help optimize a perforating design. Well productivity indicators are calculated against ranges
of the perforating and reservoir parameters, such as shot density, wellbore drilling damage depth and severity, crushed zone
impairment, rock strength, and dynamic underbalance magnitude etc., to investigate their effect on well performance. Based on
these results, the perforating strategy and design may be revised and improved. As shown in Fig. 1, if any perforating system
SPE 151800 5

parameters or reservoir properties are changed, the entire evaluation needs to be done again. This iterative workflow ensures
the evaluation process covers all possible perforating conditions and the selected perforating system is optimum for operators.

Application of the Integrated Perforating Optimization Processes

The integrated perforating optimization processes described above has been implemented in the authors’ latest version of a
perforating design software tool (Schlumberger, 2011). The enhanced program allows perforating/completion engineers to
optimize the perforated well efficiency by comparing a variety of gun/charge configurations and reservoir conditions. A
primary change in the software from the previous version is that a newly developed, rock based penetration model is
implemented to replace the concrete based model (Harvey et al. 2012b). The DUB properties estimated from a comprehensive
transient wellbore pressure simulator (Baumann and Williams, 2010) are incorporated in the program to reliably estimate
perforation tunnel condition using a novel perforation damage model (Harvey et al. 2012a). Based on these estimated
perforation results, the software program further calculates productivity for both oil and gas wells using the improved Karakas
and Tariq (1991) semi-analytical solution. The effects of gravel packing, reservoir boundaries and partial completion can be
included in the productivity analysis. The perforating design tool is sufficiently versatile that it can handle single or multi-zone
calculations as well as single and multiphase conditions. The following cases demonstrate the applications of the perforating
optimization processes and the design software tool.

The first case is a wireline perforating application. The objective of the perforating design is to select the appropriate
perforating setup among candidate 4-1/2” carrier systems for a gas well. Table 1 gives the related values of formation, fluid,
well and wellbore properties. It can be seen that the well has relatively deep and severe near wellbore damage. The deeper
penetrating 5SPF system is naturally a candidate. However, it is a concern that the formation permeability is quite high for a
gas reservoir, which may lead to a large non-Darcy skin for low shot density systems. Therefore, a 12SPF system is also
considered. However, this higher shot density system brings two tradeoffs in this instance – reduced penetration depth, and
minimal DUB. A reduced shot density of this system may provide better well performance. The candidate systems that will be
compared and evaluated are listed in Table 2. The task for this case is narrowed down to identifying the optimum operating
system from the list for this particular well. Note that a DUB design includes both standard shaped charges and special charges
to optimize the flow into the gun body in order to drop the pressure rapidly outside the gun. This rapid drop in pressure in front
of each perforation enables perforation cleanup. Different combinations of standard and DUB charges provide different DUB
responses. The combination of DUB and shot density can be analyzed.

After penetration and entrance-hole size are estimated using the new rock based model, the dynamic wellbore pressure
simulator is run to obtain the DUB values for the systems 1 and 3 in Table 2. Their transient pressure histories are shown in
Figs. 5 – 6. The maximum DUB magnitudes of 1725 psi and 1925 psi are obtained for systems 1 & 3, respectively. Note that
system 2 in this instance does not produce a DUB. The dynamic wellbore pressure results shown in Figs. 5 – 6 are then fed
into the DUB skin model, which renders the perforation tunnel condition, including the crushed zone skin etc. Then, the
improved Karakas and Tariq semi-analytical solution is utilized to obtain all skin components and productivity indicators of
the perforated well. The values of these skin components and productivity indicators are the outputs of the integrated
perforating design tool and are given in Table 3. It can be seen from the results in Table 3 that system 2 gives substantially
lower productivity because of a far higher crushed zone skin from the non-DUB design. This system is the first to be removed
from our consideration of the perforating string. Systems 1 and 3 have similar productivity results although system 1 is slightly
better. Apparently, a larger shot density in system 3 does not bring down the non-Darcy skin with respect to a smaller shot
density in system 1. The reason is that the averaged penetration of system 3 is about 6 in. shorter than that of the system 1,
which offsets the benefit of higher shot density in reducing the severity of flow convergence around perforation tunnels.

Because the wellbore drilling damage has a significant effect on the well productivity and has a large uncertainty for this well,
its influence should be investigated in order to make a proper decision on the perforating design. The sensitivities of the
productivity index to the wellbore damage depth and kd/k ratio are further simulated as shown in Figs. 7 – 8. Notably, a larger
wellbore damage depth may result in a drastic decrease of productivity ratio for system 3 while its effect on system 1 is
moderate for a damage depth as deep as 20 in (Fig. 7). A more severe wellbore damage (lower kd/k value) would make the
productivity difference between systems 1 and 3 larger, i.e., system 1 would be even more superior over system 3. As deeper
and more severe wellbore damage cannot be ruled out in this case, the sensitivity analysis reinforces the advantages of system
1. Therefore, system 1 is selected to be the perforating system for the job.

The second case is an application using Mechanical Earth Model and perforation log to optimize a gun string for a TCP job.
Fig. 9 shows depth variations of formation properties along wellbore trajectory for Case 2. Well deviation is about 31 degrees.
To bypass near wellbore damage zone and maximize well production, a 4.5” gun loaded at 5SPF with deepest penetration
charges is selected for the perforating system. Several very low permeability layers exist in the reservoir and the decision was
made not to perforate these intervals. Five 20ft guns along with a 5ft spacer gun are used in the string. Considering the large
variation of formation permeability in the formation along the borehole, the five guns from the top to bottom are loaded 16ft,
6 SPE 151800

16ft, 18ft, 20ft and 12ft, respectively. The predicted depth of penetration distribution is shown in the track 6 in Fig. 9.
However, the transient wellbore pressure simulator shows that this gun system configuration renders a dynamic overbalance
condition. The perforation skin model gives a very low averaged kc/k value of 0.04 along the wellbore although 200 psi static
underbalance is utilized. The low crushed zone permeability ratio results in a large perforation skin value. Consequently, the
predicted well production is only about 1039 b/d under the condition of 3800 psi bottom hole flowing pressure. To improve
the well productivity, the gun string design is changed to create a dynamic underbalance. The loaded deep penetration charges
are reduced to create the right underbalance in the five guns in the string. Based on simulation results from the transient
wellbore pressure simulator, this revised system delivers a large dynamic underbalance across the entire gun string as shown in
Fig. 10. Using this dynamic underbalance result, the newly developed perforation skin model predicts clean perforation
tunnels along the wellbore. The integrated software tool then generates the foot-by-foot formation productivity index, which is
further converted to production profile in the perforation log (track 7 in Fig. 9). The total estimated well production is now
1665 b/d, a significant 60% flow rate increase over the non-optimized design. Because the above gun string evaluation
considers the detailed formation property distributions, rather than a group of averaged values, the well productivity
calculation is more realistic and reliable. It demonstrates a powerful way to optimize/design the detailed gun string loading
patterns in addition to conventional gun evaluation with the averaged values using the enhanced software tool.

Conclusions

Although perforating optimization and evaluation is complicated, the processes primarily consist of the following four
interwoven major steps:
• Reservoir, well, wellbore and gun system data collection;
• Penetration depth estimation;
• Determination of penetration tunnel condition by considering the DUB properties;
• Calculation of well productivity indicators and a variety of skin components, and evaluation of gun performance
based on the calculated productivity and skin components in conjunction with sensitivity analyses of uncertain
reservoir and perforating parameters.

This work implements the following three new technologies that substantially improve the reliability of the above processes
for perforating design, evaluation and optimization:
• A newly developed model to accurately estimate shaped charge penetration in stressed rocks;
• Transient DUB characteristics obtained from a comprehensive dynamic wellbore pressure simulator;
• A novel perforation skin model when DUB perforating occurs.

The direct outcomes from application of these optimization processes are more accurate results of perforation tunnel geometry
and condition, which lead to more reliable estimation of perforated well productivity. These processes have been implemented
in the latest version of the perforating design software tool developed by the authors. One notable feature is that all skin
components are calculated along with a variety of well productivity indicators. Gun performance evaluation requires
systematically considering all skin components as well as productivity indicators rather than only looking at the lump sum
results of the final well productivity. It is shown that reliability of gun system selection can be improved by conducting the
sensitivity analyses of productivity indicators to various reservoir, well and perforating parameters. This mitigates the effects
of the uncertainty in those properties on the gun system optimization. Computing perforation property variations along the
borehole provides not only more reliable estimation of well productivity, but also a powerful method to optimize gun loading
patterns in gun string design.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Schlumberger management for permission to publish this work. Many colleagues helped
conduct extensive experiments and modeling studies that led to the development of the current perforating optimization tool.
Their contributions are gratefully acknowledged.

Nomenclature

k – permeability, md;
kc – crushed zone permeability, md;
kd – wellbore damage zone permeability, md.
SPE 151800 7

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8 SPE 151800

Property Value Property Value

Well Diameter (in) 8.5 Formation Rock Sandstone
Wellbore Fluid Brine Porosity 0.13
Well Deviation (degree) 0 Horizontal Permeability (md) 83
Wellbore Damage Depth (in) 8 Vertical Permeability (md) 24
kd/k ~ 0.2 Formation Thickness (ft) 15
Rock Strength (psi) 3550 Formation Fluid Dry gas
Vertical Stress (psi) 9400 Pore Pressure (psi) 5125
Casing Weight (lbm/ft) 35 Casing OD (in) 7

Table 1 – Formation, wellbore, and well properties for Case 1.

Parameter System 1 System 2 System 3

Gun Type High Shot Density DUB High Shot Density High Shot Density DUB
Charge Type 5SPFHMX 12SPF HMX 12SPF HMX
Standard Charge (spf) 4.5 12 8
DUB Puncher Charge (spf) 0.5 0 0.5
Gun Position Eccentered Eccentered Eccentered
Explosive Weight (g) 38.8 22 22
API Penetration (in) 59.2 34 34

Table 2 – Gun systems are evaluated in Case 1.

Parameter System 1 System 2 System 3

Max DUB (psi) 1725 N/A 1925
Rock Penetration (in) 22.6 16.6 16.6
Entrance Hole Dia. (in) 0.44 0.34 0.34
Productivity Ratio 1.14 0.9 1.12
Productivity Index (MMscf/d/psi) 0.047 0.039 0.045
Production Rate (MMscf/d) 15.2 12.7 14.7
Total Skin 4.33 6.49 4.69
Darcy Skin -0.82 0.77 -0.7
Perforation Skin -0.82 0.77 -0.7
Crushed Zone Skin 0.24 1.21 0.16
Deviation Skin 0 0 0
Partially Open Skin 0 0 0
Non-Darcy Skin 5.15 5.72 5.39

Table 3 – DUB properties, perforation tunnel condition, skin components and well productivity indicators obtained for the gun
systems in Case 1.
SPE 151800 9

Fig. 1 – Integrated optimization processes for perforating system selection and evaluation.
10 SPE 151800

Fig. 2 – Schematic of a perforated completion.

Fig. 3 – The effect of penetration depth and perforation tunnel diameter on well productivity ratio (Tariq, 1987).
SPE 151800 11

Fig. 4 – Effect of crushed zone impairment and wellbore drilling damage on well productivity
ivity ratio (Schlumberger, 2008).
2008

Fig. 5 – Transient wellbore pressure

pressur results for System 1 in Case 1..
12 SPE 151800

Fig. 6 – Transient wellbore pressure

pressur results for System 3 in Case 1..

Fig. 7 – Productivity ratio vs. damage zone thickness for the Gun Systems
ystems 1 and 3.
SPE 151800 13

Fig. 8 – Productivity ratio vs. wellbore damage kd/k for the Gun Systems 1 and 3 in Case 1.

Fig. 9 – Mechanical Earth Model and perforation log in Case 2. Penetration against wellbore damage depth is highlighted in
Track 6.
14 SPE 151800

Fig. 10 – Gun pressure history using 0.5 SPF DUB puncher charges in Case 2.