Applying production technologies begins with “unlocking” the hydrocarbons from the rock pores and facilitating their flow from the reservoir into the well. The rate at which flow occurs is dictated by Darcy’s law for porous media, in which flow is a function of fluid viscosity, permeability, surface area open to flow, and the pressure drop along the path from the pore to the wellbore.

 

Maximizing both flow rate and recovery depends greatly on stimulation technologies. Hydraulic fracturing is one stimulation technology routinely performed on oil and gas wells in low-permeability reservoirs. Specially engineered fluids are pumped at high pressure and high rate into the interval to be treated, causing fractures in the reservoir rock. Proppant, such as sand or ceramic spheres, is mixed with the fluids to keep the fractures open to promote fluid flow.

 

Over the 60 years since the discovery of hydraulic fracturing, various techniques beyond simply increasing pumping horsepower have been developed to improve performance. But the true revolution in hydraulic fracturing occurred in 2010, when Schlumberger commercialized the HiWAY engineered fracturing service and radically changed the way that the conductivity of the fracture is generated.

 

HiWAY technology integrates reservoir modeling, optimized perforating, specialized fluids, process-controlled delivery to construct a hydraulic fracture with a complex network of stable flow channels within the fracture. Instead of flowing through a proppant pack of sand grains or ceramic spheres, the hydrocarbon flows through open channels of infinite conductivity. By changing the nature of the flow pathway, HiWAY conductivity-enabled fracturing optimizes production and improves recovery.

 

HiWAY technology has enjoyed exceptional market penetration. Only two years after its introduction, more than 10,000 operations have been performed, with the number of stages in 2012 double that of 2011. HiWAY operations have been conducted for more than 80 customers in 15 countries, and approximately one-fifth of all Schlumberger fracture stimulation jobs use HiWAY technology.