A question for all you arm chair drillers.

I have question for all of you arm chair drillers to speculate about.  Some of you may recognize (painfully) my name for my various pipeing-offs in the past, so you may know what area I come from.  otherwise, I am not mentioning the locality in this post in order to get a wide range of answers or guesses.  A well has been drilled horizontally and is soon to be fracked any day.  The land owner has been notified that the well will be flared off afterward.  No surprises so far.  A pipeline will not reach the well for perhaps six months.  The well may beflared for up to 30 days.  Is this unusual?  What type of gas might such a well be after?

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Permalink Reply by craig on January 28, 2012 at 4:50am

Speculation indeed!

Permalink Reply by Brian on January 28, 2012 at 5:49am

Where is the well located? What is the name of it?

Permalink Reply by Brian Day on January 28, 2012 at 7:04am

I would rather not tell you because I am interested in the proceedures that have been witnessed where various types of gas or oil have been drilled.  What does this scenario correlate to?  Does it correlate to anything?  I am probably asking about a tempest in a teacup and what is happening at this location may be a whim of the particular company due to scheduling of equipment or lease requirements. 

Permalink Reply by paleface on January 28, 2012 at 7:28am

My guess would be the well has alot of water in the gas they are trying to burn it off or they are not interested in the gas and are burning it off to get to the oil?

Permalink Reply by Jim Litwinowicz on January 28, 2012 at 8:02am

This is common to most horizontal wells, the flaring may be a little longer than normal.And during the 30 days, the flare will most likely be intermittent. They will flare off and on and may complete flaring before the 30 days is up. I have know idea of the on/off ratio but I would think the flaring would be well less than 50% of the time period.

What they are after is dependent on your location.  You may be a wet gas zone, a dry gas zone, or in an oil zone. The procedure is very similar in all zones.

Permalink Reply by Brian Powers on January 28, 2012 at 9:29am

 

Brian - Flaring a well to clean up before flowing to pipeline is not unusual in my experience, primarily to dewater the inlet gas stream. Cracking or LNG plants can only tolerate very small percentages of water; some chemicals entrained in the flow back fluid may cause foaming in the plant vessels and in the worst case, emulsions that are difficult to break or treat. Compressors cannot handle large slugs of fluid at all.

 

Periodic well shut ins between flares are also common to allow the well to build pressure. This aids in re-establishing natural flow, which is preferable to nitrogen or other forms of artificial lift

 

Brian

Permalink Reply by paleface on January 28, 2012 at 10:27am

 Brian would a gas company frack a gas well that is not going on line for six months? Wouldn't the flow back for that period of time obstruct the vertical?

Permalink Reply by Brian Powers on January 28, 2012 at 11:17am

The vertical can get plugged off at anytime during clean up or while under production if the gas velocity is insufficient to continuously lift the fluid from the well. Its a well documented phenomenon called "liquid loading". Periodic shut ins during the cleanup period allow near wellbore pressure to build, which helps flush the tubing of liquids when the well is re-opened to the flare pit or manifold system.

 

To recoup the huge capital investment to lease, drill and complete, as well as recovering the other overhead, it is in the best interest of the operator to flow to pipeline as soon as sufficient quantities of sales quality gas are present

 

Brian

Permalink Reply by paleface on January 28, 2012 at 12:44pm

 Thank You Brian.

Permalink Reply by Alfred Wood on February 4, 2012 at 4:12pm

Natural Gas Liquids (NGLS)

Permalink Reply by Brian Day on February 4, 2012 at 4:20pm

I am not sure the purpose of your comment, Alfred.  Are you suggesting the gasco may be after NGSL?

 

Permalink Reply by Richard Kubas on February 6, 2012 at 1:25am

This doesn't seem unusual.

It might not be good to shut in the well because it could ruin the formation.

They could be testing the resevoir potential by flowing the well through a choke and seeing if the resevoir pressure drops off.

They could be cleaning out the formation.

 

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