The Systematic Closing of the Performance Gaps in Hydraulic Fracturing

Hydraulic fracturing is the overwhelming completion method in the international petroleum industry. It is estimated, that today it has become a $20 billion industry. It is also one of the most challenging enterprises, incorporating scientific information from geology, reservoir and production engineering, rock mechanics, complex fluid rheology and field economics. More than a decade ago we introduced the concept of Unified Fracture Design (UFD) as a means towards physical optimization. Since then UFD has been adopted by a great number of practitioners and hundreds of papers have been published. Not all approaches have been successful, nor have they been done appropriately. In this work we relook at the whole issue in a systematic way. We have identified and describe here a 9-step sequence to mitigate the gaps and help in the optimized field application of modern hydraulic fracturing.