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COMPLETIONS/
STIMULATION
TECHNOLOGY

Proppants raise the curve for coalbed

methane production
Adding proppant in targeted completions can improve well profitability, according
to public data from 100 wells in Alberta’s Horseshoe Canyon coalbed methane field.
Brad Rieb, BJ Services Company Canada Ltd., Calgary

As North American demand for natural gas rises, resulting at $7/Mcf, that amounts to average annual gross revenues of
in higher prices, unconventional gas resources become more about $295,000.
economically attractive. This is driving the exploitation of Rising gas prices have prompted a flurry of coalbed drilling
coalbed methane fields. activity, largely followed by status quo, proppantless comple-
Drilling for coalbed methane in Alberta, Canada’s gas- tions. However, a recent study of coalbed methane wells com-
prone basin (Fig. 1) has grown rapidly in the last two years, pleted in Horseshoe Canyon intervals suggests that including
from 710 wells drilled in 2003, to 3,000 in 2005, and 3,500 proppants during completion/stimulation can significantly
wells projected for 2006. Most of this activity involves exploit- improve production.
ing the pervasive, multiple seams of shallow coal beds. These
gas-bearing coals are generally referred to as the Horseshoe COMPLETION AND STIMULATION
Canyon family of geological formations. The Alberta Geologi- Completions in coalbed methane wells have historically run
cal Survey estimates these formations contain more than 185 the gamut of completion techniques and hydraulic fracturing
Tcf (5.2 Tm3) of dry, sweet methane. fluid systems. Because of their ultra-low water saturation and
A recent report estimates only 5% of Alberta’s coalbed desiccated nature, the Horseshoe Canyon coalbed formations
methane resources (26 Tcf or require dry, non-aqueous fractur-
0.73 Tm3) are recoverable.1 Cur- ing systems. This facilitates quick
rent reserve analysis suggests that cleanup and evaluation, complete
recoverable, marketable reserves formation compatibility and easy
in the Horseshoe Canyon have treatment operations.
significant variability and recovery Historically, well completions in
factors range from as low as 10% the study area employ three general
to as high as 60% in some areas. strategies:
Clearly, this low recoverability in- • Perforations targeting only
dicates a huge potential to increase coal seams, with a concentrated ef-
recovery using advances in reser- fort to contain fractures within the
voir characterization and comple- coal, Fig. 2a.
tion technologies. • Perforations targeting sand-
Horseshoe Canyon wells are stone, with fracture growth ex-
typically shallow (490 to 2,800 pected in adjacent or nearby coal
ft/150 to 850 m), which makes seams, Fig. 2b.
them quick to drill and readily • Perforations covering both
accessible, but they are only mar- sandstone and coal, with fracture
ginally productive compared with growth possible, Fig. 2c.
conventional gas reserves. To evaluate these completion
Production varies considerably strategies and better understand
as wells commingle gas from up reservoir production characteris-
to 30 coal seams, each measuring tics, BJ Services Company Can-
1.5 to 5 ft thick, with occasional ada analyzed public completion
seams up to about 10 ft (3 m) and production data for 98 wells
thick. Total wellbore production completed in Horseshoe Canyon
ranges from 35 to 635 Mcfgd (1 coalbed intervals northeast of the
to 18 Mm3/d), with an average city of Red Deer in central Alberta,
Fig. 1. Horseshoe Canyon coals in Alberta, Canada, are
around 115 Mcfgd, or just un- a fast-growing target for gas well drilling. Canada.
der 42 MMcf/yr. With gas prices In this area, standard industry
World Oil AUGUST 2006
COMPLETIONS/STIMULATION TECHNOLOGY

B C D



Fig. 2. Well logs in the Horseshoe Canyon coalbed methane study show their completion strategies: a) perforating (black) and
sequentially stimulating (green) each coal seam; b) targeting sandstone with perforations (black) and stimulation (green); and c)
perforating zones that cover both coal seams and sandstone.

practice is to complete all coal seams identified by neutron- on residual permeability created when high-rate nitrogen at
porosity cased-hole log response. Therefore, typical wells can high pressure disrupts the naturally closed cleat face and struc-
include 10 to 30 potential gas-bearing targets. The most com- ture. This tendency further complicates an effective stimula-
mon completion technique has been sequentially stimulating tion, since most of central Alberta’s coals are in compressional
each coal seam with high-rate nitrogen (and no proppant), stress, so, stimulation without proppants can result in rapid
using a simple coiled tubing cup tool assembly to isolate each closure of the cleat system.2
seam for treatment, Fig. 3. A possible alternative to this completion strategy is the use
Because no proppant is involved, these treatments never run of conventional or lightweight proppants with fracture fluid
the risk of sanding off, eliminating the risk of a wellbore clean- systems that are completely compatible with coal. This option
out operation. Furthermore, the extensive wellbore stimulation exploits the long-understood and much publicized benefits of
of these discrete multiple coals allows the operator to immedi- fracture sand conductivity in fracture stimulation.
ately assign volumetric reserves to each completed zone. How- The downside of this option is the relatively higher cost of
ever, they do have some significant technical pitfalls. transporting proppant (compared with pumping N2 only) into
First, high-rate nitrogen 10 to 30 coal seams. Grading
stimulation depends upon seams by their likely gas pro-
developing adequate net duction would enable a more
pressure at the coal face and cost-effective completion
in the cleat system to create strategy, reducing costs by
fracture width and length. targeting only high-graded
Inherent nitrogen gas char- intervals. This option trades
acteristics of compress- the booking of volumetric
ibility and extremely high reserves against improving
leak-off make it difficult to long-term permeability in a
achieve sufficient net pres- few high-graded coal seams.
sure to affect poorly devel- The key to designing a
oped cleat systems, such as stimulation plan, then, is to
those found in Horseshoe learn more about the pro-
Canyon coals. Addition- ducing mechanisms of coal-
ally, because of the required bed methane.
high treatment rates, ero-
sion will promote coal fines COAL AND
generation that can impede SANDSTONE
production. In a pilot study of Horse-
Second, because the Fig. 3. The most common completion technique for Horseshoe shoe Canyon wells,3 we
treatment does not use Canyon coal seams is sequentially stimulating each seam through
coiled tubing.
examined completion and
proppant, its success relies production data for 37 wells
World Oil AUGUST 2006
  
 
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Fig.4.First-yearproductiondataforwellswithHorseshoeCanyoncoal
seams show higher average production from proppant-stimulated
wells than from proppantless completions. See Fig. 5 legend.
whose completion technique include coal seams (i.e., resem-
bling Figs. 2a or 2c). Fracture stimulations on these wells in-
cluded proppantless N2, 80% N2/20% CO2 with proppant,
and water/methanol CO2 emulsion systems with proppant.
The data showed that wells completed with water/metha-
nol/CO2 systems produced much less gas than the other wells,
possibly because of their high (80% or more) CO2 volumes.
One issue with using CO2 in this region is that the dry coals
adsorb pure (100%) CO2, impeding methane production.
Reducing the percentage of CO2 in a mixture significantly
reduces the problem, but the benefits require reductions to
25% CO2 or less.4,5 The initial study also indicated that sand-
stone might contribute to production from some N2-stimu-
lated wells originally believed to have been stimulated only
in coal seams. Although all wells in the pilot study included
coal seams in their perforations, many also had perforations in
neighboring gas-bearing sandstone.
These findings prompted an expanded study, including wells
whose perforations do not cover coal seams but whose fracture
stimulations might have fortuitously reached those coal seams
(and their captive gas) through fracture-height growth.
Under normal fracturing pressures, fracture-height growth
has been known to reach coal zones 15 ft from the perfora-
tions. Radioactive tracers have indicated that height growth,
although uncommon, can develop to 30 ft. The role of inef-
fective zonal segregation (from poor drilling and cementing
practices) on these results is unclear. Additionally, the com-
plex lithology of coal, shale, siltstones and sandstone will affect
fracture dimensions.
Based on this understanding of fracture growth, we exam-
ined production data from wells with proppantless N2 frac-
tures in coal, and those with CO2/N2 proppant stimulations
whose perforations were within 10 m of coal seams, Fig. 4.
PROPPANT ADVANTAGE
The proppantless N2 fracture stimulations targeted dry coal
seams in the well, using coiled tubing to deliver that treatment
to, typically, 10 to 30 perforated seams. The CO2/N2 propped
fracture stimulations targeted one to three high-graded zones
and used conventional completion techniques of wireline per-
forating and bridge plugs to segregate targeted intervals.
Although they produce from fewer zones, the high-graded
CO2/N2/proppant completions produce more gas in total, on
average, than the proppantless N2-only wells. The propped
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Fig. 5. At the end of a year, proppant-stimulated wells produced as
much as 50% more gas than those treated with N2 alone.
wells come online with average initial production at 177 Mcf-
gd (5 Mm3/d) compared with unpropped wells at 141 Mcfgd
(4 Mm3/d), then both types of wells decline with similar slopes
and stabilize to constant rates within 7,000 hr, as expected for
coal-dominated production. Throughout this production de-
cline, CO2/N2 propped stimulations continued to produce at
a significant premium over those completed with only N2.
Over the course of a year, the in-coal CO2/N2/proppant-
stimulated wells produce an average of 54 MMcf (1,530
Mm3), 23% more gas than the 44 MMcf (1,245 Mm3) aver-
age from the proppantless wells. Thus at $7/Mcf, the aver-
age proppant-stimulated well produced $70,000 more gross
revenue in a year than the average proppantless well—and the
total stimulation cost was $15,000 less.
Production data for wells whose perforations are 5 or 10
m away from coal seams show higher initial production fol-
lowed by a steep transient production decline and late-time
stabilization: classic characteristics of tight sandstone-domi-
nated production.
The production data also clearly show the effects of water
migration into sandstone intervals in these low-pressure res-
ervoirs. Average daily production of wells stimulated as far as
10 m from a coal seam shows higher initial production than
in-coal stimulations, but around 6,000 hr of production time,
production falls below the average for wells whose comple-
tions targeted coal seams.
Still, a high-graded combination of coal with sandstone can
increase production and operator profit, especially if the stim-
ulation treatment plan avoids areas likely to induce water pro-
duction. An average well stimulated with CO2/N2/proppant
within 5 m of a coal seam yielded $15,000 in stimulation sav-
ings and incremental production valued at $189,000 per well
after one year, compared with the average proppantless stimu-
lated well, Fig. 5. Incremental production over a propped well
with stimulation confined to the coal seam is about $119,000.
Clearly, the benefit of proppant and conductivity translates
itself into profit.
After reviewing these data, we decided to take the data
COMPLETIONS/STIMULATION TECHNOLOGY
analysis one step further. To account for individual reservoir
variations, we normalized well production rates to gross pay
(perforated pay for the in-coal stimulations and a best estimate
of total stimulated pay for the sandstone-dominated stimula-
tions). The general character and shape of the daily and cu-
mulative production graphs correlated directly to the figures
included here.
ACTING ON THE RESULTS
These wells are expected to continue stable (if low-rate)
production for 20 to 40 years. Because Alberta’s coalbed
methane reserves have only recently gained widespread in-
terest as a production and exploitation target, the long-term
impact of proppant versus proppantless completions has yet
to be fully understood.
However, anecdotal evidence appears to support the theory
that proppant fracturing results in improved production. Two
years after stimulating multiple coal seams with proppant-
less N2 systems, some operators have shared post-completion
flowmeter surveys indicating poor to non-existent gas produc-
tion from some stimulated coal seams—including the thickest
seams that had been expected to produce the most gas!
In some regions of the development fairway, operators
have voiced the concerns that only 20% of the perforated and
“stimulated” zones are producing gas. This could mean that
up to 80% of the completed zones are under-stimulated or
incorrectly characterized.
In our experience, the over-used term “skin damage”
is becoming a catch-all for a host of complex flow dynam-
ics including reservoir pressure, flow capacity and ineffective
stimulation. This frustration has motivated some operators to
pursue detailed reservoir characterization through unique pet-
rophysical analysis and post-treatment production profiling.
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Based on our data analysis and experience, and these anec-
dotes, we developed a stimulation treatment plan for three wells
that were to be completed in the Horseshoe Canyon coals. In
each well, we used CO2/N2 proppant treatments to sequentially
fracture three high-graded zones through coiled tubing. Al-
though production data were being held confidential, the results
from the first 100 days of production are very encouraging.
As a further step toward optimizing completion techniques
for these coals, BJ has developed a proprietary technique of
combining conventional and ultra-lightweight proppants in
a high-rate N2 gas stream, with or without CO2. The com-
pany has completed operational trials, and field applications
are pending. WO
LITERATURE CITED
1 Canadian Gas Potential Committee, “Natural gas potential in Canada—2005,” May 2006.
2 BJ Services Company Canada Ltd. and Rakhit Petroleum Consulting Ltd., Joint Venture, “Multi-client
study: Stress analysis—Central Alberta,” January 2006.
3 Rieb, B. A., and T. T. Leshchyshyn, “The production success of proppant stimulation on Horseshoe Can-
yon coal bed methane and sandstone commingled wells,” SPE 96864, presented at SPE Annual Technical
Conference and Exhibition, Dallas, October 2005.
4 Mavor, M. J. and W. D. Gunter, “Secondary porosity and permeability of coal vs. gas composition and
pressure,” SPE 90255, presented at SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Houston, Septem-
ber 2004.
5 Mavor, M. J. and W. D. Gunter, “Alberta Multiwell micro-pilot testing of CBM properties, enhanced
methane recovery and CO2 storage potential,” SPE 90256, presented at SPE Annual Technical Conference
and Exhibition, Houston, September 2004.
The author
Brad Rieb, P. Eng., is the regional technical man-
ager for BJ Services Company Canada, Ltd., in
Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He earned a diploma in
Petroleum Technology from the Southern Alberta
Institute of Technology in 1979 and a BSc in Pe-
troleum Engineering from Montana Tech of the
University of Montana in 1982. He has held senior
technical roles in production, completion, reservoir
engineering and business development. Mr. Rieb is
a registered professional engineer in the Province
of Alberta and a member of SPE.
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