SPE-197720-MS

Abrasive Jet Perforation: Successful Deployment of Novel Technique to

Enhance Production and Promote Savings

Alexey Moiseenkov, Abdullah Al Hadhrami, Hilal Shabibi, Dmitrii Smirnov, Younis Busaidi, Yousuf Nabhani, Alvaro
Nunez, and Zaal Alias, Petroleum Development Oman; Ahmed Al-Jabri, Thru Tubing Solutions

Copyright 2019, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference held in Abu Dhabi, UAE, 11-14 November 2019.

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
Perforations and stimulations of horizontal wells are technically challenging, costly and required lengthy
operations time. Often, perforated and stimulated wells show non-uniform production distribution and poor
production results. In case of high pressure and sour environment, HSE risk is also increasing. In one of
the producing assets in the Southern Oman, a study was conducted to review the most optimum perforation
option based on historical performance of horizontal wells perforations, stimulations and production.
Three perforations/completions methods reviewed:
A. Explosive perforations with tractor or coil tubing conveyance,
B. Fishbone Completions,
C. Abrasive Jetting Perforations
Abrasive Jetting perforations were shown to be the most optimum option allowing perforation of the
entire horizontal section (maximum connection to the reservoir), minimizing operations time, and reducing
HSE exposure and cost.
Abrasive Jetting is the process of pumping abrasive material through the specific nozzles with fluid
via coil tubing. Nozzles are faced 90 degree to casing and kinetic energy from high velocity abrasive
material erodes casing, cement and rock. Tests have shown that wash-down caverns can reach 1.2-1.4 meters
penetration length and 0.3-0.5 meters of caverns diameter. This is about 10 times deeper than conventional
perforation technique.
Since 2018, successful deployment of abrasive jetting perforations has been done on three wells out
of five planned. Results to-date also shows that productivity index (PI) derived from multirate tests in
first well reached 58 m3/d/bar, in second well 28 m3/d/bar and in third well 20 m3/d/bar, respectively.
Reservoir permeability in first well is 10 times higher than in third. Due to low permeability in third
well, it was stimulated with matrix acidizing. All three wells flowed with low GOR=250 m3/m3 for the
current field. Achieved PI's is 2 to 5 times higher than in previous best well in the field to date. Previous
best well had explosive perforations covering 100% of the horizontal sections and the entire horizontal
section was matrix acid stimulated with coil tubing. Production logging processed with Spectrum Noise
2 SPE-197720-MS

Logging (SNL), Production Logging (PLT), High Precision Temperature logging (HPT) observed uniform
production distribution across the wellbore and it is fully correlatable to the reservoir properties observed
across the perforated zone.
Total operations time reduced from 40 to 12 days and resulted in 4 times reduction in perforations and
stimulations cost. Also due to the minimization of operations time in high-pressure sour field, operations
HSE risk has been reduced and process safety improved.
This newly proposed approach of perforations and stimulations in horizontal wells is the first
implementation in PDO/Oman. In high permeability conventional reservoirs due to deep jetting caverns,
penetrations do not require acid stimulation as caverns penetrate to the same depth as matrix acidizing.
However, in low permeability reservoirs it is recommended to acid stimulate all perforated zones.
For our wells with 600 m of horizontal section, perforations of only 25% of horizontal section by abrasive
jetting caverns create 10.5 higher reservoir contact compared to explosive perforations of all 100% of
horizontal wellbore, and 8.8 times higher reservoir contact than 24 Fishbones.
It is envisaged that Abrasive Jetting is beneficial for perforations of horizontal well onshore and
specifically offshore with high rig operations cost.

Introduction & Historical Performance

The Field B was discovered in 1978 well B-1. Field B is located in South of Oman and encountered three
dolomite stringers near the base of the Ara salt (besides the A4C reservoir, the A3C and A1C reservoirs
show hydrocarbons). The uppermost, A4C carbonate stringer was tested with very high production rate and
PI of 20 m3/d/bar. Based on the extreme PI, it is assumed that the reservoir either is fractured or has good
reservoir properties. To date Field B has 22 wells and 3 more in planned for drilling by 2020.
The first well was followed by first appraisal well B-2 in 1978, which was tested in November 1979 with
same range high rate and again extremely high PI of 12 m3/d/kPa was observed.
South block was penetrated with B South-1well. Well was drilled in 1979 and discovered the gas cap on
top of the reservoir in Field B. Production test in the same year showed very promising gas rate indicating
very good permeability, however, somewhat lower in comparison to B-1 and B-2. B-3 was spudded in
1980 to further appraise the reservoir. These wells were followed by B-4 in 1981, which delineated the
South-Western Corner of the field. B-4 proved water bearing in a production test that flowed brine under
huge drawdown indicating very poor reservoir quality at a depth where the main A4C block wells showed
moveable oil. Thus, B-4 block forms an isolated block.
SPE-197720-MS 3

Figure 1—Field B location - South of Oman

Based on further field development was confirmed that Field B has carbonate oil ring stringer body
floated in salt and has water below and gas above. Due to risk of water and gas production decision made
to develop the field with horizontal wells drilled in the middle of oil zones. First horizontal well B-7 was
drilled in 2000, completed with openhole slotted liner and could not be stimulated due to heavy barite from
drilling fluid settling inside slotted liner leading to multiple coil tubing stucks and loss the hole. The well
had to be re-drilled in the form of B-8 in the same year. 100 % of horizontal section of B-8 was perforated
with coil tubing conveyance method and all perforated interval was matrix acid stimulated. Welltesting
shown good production results and PLT confirm full and even production coverage. Due to lengthy and risky
perforations in high H2S environment proposed to use tractor conveyance instead of coil tubing in future
horizontal wells. Some later drilled wells had appraisal target and was drilled in water bearing. Vertical gas
injectors was drilled in gas cap and completed with cemented liner (see Fig.2 below), perforate and acid
stimulated. Some horizontal wells had poor stimulation (see Fig.3) with only one or two short producing
zones and gas-out quickly (see Fig.4 and 5). Team fully understood that horizontal wells required good,
uniform and preferably inexpensive perforation and stimulations across entire perforated zone to reach
smooth drawdown across horizontal section and longer production life without gas break-thought. Five
more horizontal wells was drilled and abrasive jetting perforations method was proposed as a trial with
tractor conveyance perforations as back-up
4 SPE-197720-MS

Figure 2—Vertical injector well completion example

SPE-197720-MS 5

Figure 3—Production logging results of some "good" and "bad" horizontal wells.
6 SPE-197720-MS

Figure 4—Wells production profile before gas break through

Figure 5—Production wells GOR

SPE-197720-MS 7

New proposed practice

As sufficient injectors was drilled currently we drilling only horizontal production wells. Well design
improved to fully monobore cemented completion design with PBR to allow smooth well interventions and
easy well recompletion if required. Example of current well design shown below on Fig. 6

Figure 6—Field B actual horizontal well completion.

Explosive perforation tractor or coil tubing conveyed with stimulation after were successful in terms of
production and reserves recovery. However, long perforations execution time and additional risks of high
pressure in H2S environment operation led to find less expensive, robust, less time consuming and good
productivity alternative solutions. Three options reviewed and compared:
A. Explosive perforations with tractor or coil tubing conveyance as based case
B. Abrasive Jetting Perforations
C. Fishbone Completions
8 SPE-197720-MS

Flow areas, which are the areas of connection of the wellbore with reservoir dimensions of different
methods are compared and complied in Table 1.

Table 1—Flow area comparison between explosive and abrasive jetting perforations and 24 Fishbones in 600 m horizontal section

Calculated flow area, other words area of connection between wellbore and reservoir during abrasive
jetting perforations of 25% of entire interval with 3 caverns per meter is 10.5 times higher than perforation
of entire 600 m section with explosive perforations and 8.8 times higher than 24 Fishbones (maximum
technologically possible to place).
Additional public sources research and actual perforations test on real core at reservoir conditions
confirmed that abrasive-jetting caverns has deep penetration into the reservoir and creating significant wash-
down caverns.
Therefore, Abrasive Jetting perforations method selected as alternative perforation method for execution.
Abrasive Jetting is a technique to pump abrasive fluids thru jet nozzles at high pressure, it requires
Coil tubing, Sand Management System (SMS) or sacrificial chokes and double of flowback line, special
perforation BHA with nozzles, correlating devices (if required exact correlation), pumping and mixing
equipment and a substantial quantity of fluids and sand per interval.
Part of the preparation for Abrasive Jetting is to have a reference for correlation (correlating device), the
common practice in these wells is to set a plug on electric line or drill pipes during well completion and use
it as base or reference for the Coil Tubing correlations. The perforator BHA tag the plug, after that the coil
tubing operator correct the stretch of the pipe and move up the BHA to the required depth. This procedure
still gives an error up to 3 meters on depth accuracy but for horizontal wells with relative uniform reservoir as
wellbore placed horizontally inside reservoir and there no immediate reservoir properties changes along the
hole it is not very critical; another correlation device is a Coil Tubing with GR-CCL real time reading. The
pumping program for Abrasive jetting normally includes static pumping stations and based on perforations
design BHA selected. In our case, 10 m can be done with five stations only, as one station (one BHA) cover
2 meters. The abrasive fluid is normally a 30# guar based gel with 100-mesh silica at concentration of 1.0
ppg (120 kg/m3) with friction reducer. The pumping rate during the jetting is about 3.3 BPM (~0.5 m3/
min); in each station, required 20-25 BBL (3-4 m3) of abrasive fluid pumped down to coil tuning and BHA
at bottom. After all stations are completed (interval perforated) gel alone is circulated thru the BHA to clean
out the wellbore across the interval from the sand left during the jetting, if any sand left, but normally due to
fluids returns and extra production from already perforated zones wellbore is cleaning from sand. Only need
to make sure that injection abrasive fluid ECD is less then reservoir pressure, in this case Abrasive Jetting
to be done underbalance, no jetting fluids and crushed sand penetrates into reservoir and all caverns clean-
SPE-197720-MS 9

up well. If reservoir pressure is lower than injection ECD of jetting fluid, then eather other perforations
method should applied or jetting fluid to be energized with N2 or CO2.
Examples of explosive perforations and abrasive jetting caverns illustrated below.

Figure 7—Actual core testing testing under reservoir conditions results: 6" (15
cm) maximum perforations penetrations with 0.2" (0.5 cm) entry hole diameter

Figure 8—Actual abrasive jetting perforations cavern size: ~27" in length (68
cm), ~16" (41 cm) in diameter with casing entry hole diameter of 0.4" (1 cm)

Explosive perforations penetrate into the reservoir based on test results approximately to 6", and often it
is not enough to bypass deep damaged zone, which can reach up to 30". Stimulation of deep damaged zone
can be not effective as permeability in damage zone is plugged and acid is not penetrating deep enough. In
case if acid penetrate and create wormholes, they can reach approximately up to 50" from the wellbore and
can help with production from virgin reservoir.
Abrasive jetting perforations errosionally can bypass deep reservoir damage zone and reach virgin
reservoir. In conventional high permeability reservoir (~ 100's of mD), only jetting penetration is enough
to have a good production rates and high well productivity index (PI - 58 and 28 m3/d/bar accordingly);
this is confirmed by our first two wells, which showed very good production after only abrasive jetting
perforations. In case of more tight reservoir with lower permeability (from 1 to 10's mD range), it is
recommended to proceed with acid stimulations along perforated length to create deeper and bigger
wormholes and penetrate inside reservoir to about 80" (~ 2 meters). Visualization of explosive perforations
and stimulations vs. only abrasive jetting vs. jetting plus acid stimulation understood after scaled drawing
with expected depth penetrations show below:
10 SPE-197720-MS

Figure 9—Visualization of explosive perforation plus acid stimulation, vs. abrasive

jetting perforation well only vs. abrasive jetting perforations and acid simulations.

For abrasive jetting perforations decided to perforate clusters of 10 meters with 3 caverns per meter
followed up by 30 meters blank section (see Fig. 8 below)

Figure 10—Proposed cluster perforations pattern. 10 m perfs followed by 30 m blank. 3 caverns

per meter in perforated zones. One time AJ tool run. 1-2 days perforations operations time.

Tool configurations illustrated in Fig. 11 and shows that two AJ tool bodies connected to each other. Each
tool body has only 3 jet nozzles open and 3 nozzles are plugged. With such tool BHA in one station treatment,
two meters on horizontal section can be covered for perforation. Total 5 stations for 10 perforated zone.
To cover 600 m horizontal section we planned 15 perforated cluster evenly distributed along all horizontal
section, based on actual logs. Such BHA with proposed perforations pattern allowed perforating entire
horizontal section within only one time AJ tool run and takes one, maximum two days coil tubing operations
time.
SPE-197720-MS 11

Figure 11—Abrasive Jetting BHA

Results & Observations

Abrasive Jetting operations
Abrasive jetting operations has been deployed in three PDO wells in the southern cluster as per plan. In
all of them total treated interval was 600 m+. Cluster perforations done, 25% of 600 m is perforated with
AJ perforations with three jetting caverns per meter. Perforations pattern is 10 m perforations and 30 meter
blank. Perforations of entire interval has been done within 1 coil tubing run and within less then 24-hour
CTU operations time. Due to high flowback returns, sometimes required to replace surface production
chokes due to washouts, therefore recommended to rig-up two flowback lines with double choke each.

Acid stimulation
Acid volume used, was about 1.2 m3/m of perforations. Acid was evenly distributed by coil tubing with
multiple up and down CTU passes during injection runs. Some live 15% HCl carefully spotted to establish
injectivity. After 1-2 hours of soaking time, more 15% live HCl followed by main volume of polyacrylamide
based gelled 15% HCl acid and then followed by significant overflush (at least 4-6 feet inside reservoir).
Actual pump schedule is below in table 2.
12 SPE-197720-MS

Table 2—Actual acid treatment pump schedule for B-19 horizontal well after abrasive jetting perforations

Production results
Abrasive jetting perforations has been done on three wells recently drilled to date. Two of those wells showed
excellent production results without acid stimulation. Wells reach PI of 58 and 28 m3/d/bar respectively.
Third lower permeability well required acid stimulations after jetting. Production increased after acid
stimulation in third well (B-19) was about 10 folds and reach PI=20 m3/d/bar with high flowing tubing
head pressure and low GOR.

Production profile and reservoir coverage

Production coverage from all three wells was relatively uniform and all perforated zones was producing
and confirmed by SNL-HPT-PLT logging (see Fig.12 below)
SPE-197720-MS 13

Figure 12—Production profile after Abrasive Jetting perforations

14 SPE-197720-MS

Time saving, HSE risk reduction and improvement of process safety due to high-pressure sour
operations
Actual perforations operations time reduced from approximately 40 operations days down to 12 days
Previously, multiple coil tubing conveyance explosive perforations experienced some well control
incidents while life guns was loaded into BOP. Due to those well control incidents coil tubing conveyance
of explosive perforations was eliminated for future executions due to very high operations risks
Multiple tractor runs observed few tractor stucks which running, which was leading to extra risky fishing
operations.
Single run coil tubing operations with non-explosive (Abrasive Jetting) BHA, dramatically improved
process safety and reduced HSE risks while operations under high pressure and with highly sour fluids (H2S
up to 12%). See tables 3 and 4 as a reference.

Table 3—Actual reduction of operations days compare to tractor and coil tubing conveyance perforations method.

Table 4—Actual number of perforation runs required

Economics
Due to significant time saving, total perforations and stimulations, cost decreased 4 times compare to
original budget based on tractor perforations and stimulations. Rate of investment returns (RIR) decreased
6-9 times and reach 3 days compare to 28-30 days with explosive perforations tractor or coil tubing
conveyed. Quicker and less risky perforations allowed hook-up well quickly.

Risks
No showstoppers identified and some operations risks and mitigations combined in table below:
SPE-197720-MS 15

Table 5—Risk and mitigation

Opportunities for future applications

Future applications*:

• Horizontal and vertical, cased hole and open hole wells in carbonate and consolidated sandstone,
including water and gas injectors
• Specifically targeted zones wells with high permeability contrast between different part of
reservoirs (tight and "thief" zones), long perforation intervals with non-uniform production
distribution.
• Highly damaged wells or wells with very poor productivity due to near wellbore damage. AJ
perforation is able to bypass the damaged zone due to deep erosional penetration.
• Replacement of acid stimulation in conventional reservoirs for any long perforation interval or
wells with open hole completion in consolidated formations
• Horizontal wells with risk of water or gas breakthrough that require even stimulation and uniform
production distribution along the wellbore for uniform sweep efficiency and drawdown distribution
with recommendations to run AICD after AJ perforation.
16 SPE-197720-MS

*Those listed above applications is valid for onshore and offshore wells. For offshore wells, cost saving
will be much more significant due to higher offshore rig daily rate.

Conclusions
• Perforation of all horizontal section as per plan.

• Reduction in cost compare to conventional tractor operations and acid stimulation (4 times compare
to originally budgeted) for onshore wells. For offshore savings can be higher due to higher offshore
rig rate.
• Good well productivity based on welltest results – Tested PI=20-58 m3/day/bar with Low GOR.

• Uniform production profile from all wellbore from toe to hill

• Reduction of HSE exposure by minimizing number of interventions from 60 tractor runs down
to1 coil tubing run\
• Improvement of process safety due to operations time reductions and eliminations of risky
operations with live explosive guns in HP high sour wells
• Reduction of operations time from ~40 operations days to 12 operations days' total.

• Time and cost can be minimized more if logging to be done standalone before abrasive jet unit visit

Acknowledgements
We thank our colleagues in Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) who contributed to this study by their
discussions and cooperation. We also thank the Ministry of Oil and Gas (MOG) of Sultanate of Oman for
permission to publish this paper.

Glossary (Terminology)
AJ: Abrasive Jetting
BHA: Bottom Hole Assembly
CTU: Coil Tubing Unit
FTHP: Flowing Tubing Head Pressure
GOR: Gas Oil Ratio
HPT: High Precision Temperature (logging)
HSE: Health, Safety, Environment
MOG: Ministry of Oil and Gas
PBR: Polished Bore Receptacles
PDO: Petroleum Development Oman
PLT: Production Logging Tool
RIR: Rate of Investment Returns
SMS: Sand Management System
SNL: Spectrum Noise Logging

References
1. SPE 107050, Darcy Shults et al, Abrasive Perforating via Coil Tubing Revisited
2. SPE SPE-92866-PP, Stan W. Loving et al, Abrasive Cutting Technology Deployed Via Coiled
Tubing