Page 198 - Introduction to Petroleum Engineering

10

WELL COMPLETIONS

Well completion includes all the steps needed to prepare a newly drilled well for
production. It frequently begins with placement of casing adjacent to the producing
formation and ends with installation of production tubing and surface hardware.
Nevertheless, the specifics of well completion are quite variable, being formation
and operator dependent.
Completion of a formation occurs after open‐hole logging and other tests of the
drilled hole are finished. If analysis of the open‐hole logs and other tests show that
economic production of oil or gas is not possible, the hole will be abandoned by
injecting cement into the well to isolate formations and to prevent contamination
of surface water. Just beneath the surface, the casing system will be capped, and the
well location will be restored to its predrilling condition. The abandonment
procedure must be approved by the governmental agency that permitted the drilling
process.
On the other hand, if analysis shows commercial promise, completion of the
well will proceed. Costs of completion are included on the drilling AFE. We begin
the following discussion of completions by introducing the concept of “skin” and
showing how it relates to productivity of wells. Then we describe various options of
completions: casing and liners, perforating practices, acidizing, and hydraulic
fracturing. We conclude with descriptions of wellbore and surface hardware needed
for production.

Introduction to Petroleum Engineering, First Edition. John R. Fanchi and Richard L. Christiansen.
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/Fanchi/IntroPetroleumEngineering