Pumping Schedule Optimization in Acid Fracturing Treatment by Unified Fracture Design

Acid fracturing simulation has been widely used to improve well performance in carbonate reservoirs. In this study, a computational method is presented to optimize acid fracturing treatments. First, fracture geometry parameters are calculated using unified fracture design methods. Then, the controllable design parameters are iterated till the fracture geometry parameters reach their optimal values. The results show higher flow rates are required to achieve optimal fracture geometry parameters with larger acid volumes. Detailed sensitivity analyses are performed on controllable and reservoir parameters. It shows that higher flow rates should be applied for fluids with lower viscosity. Straight acid reaches optimal conditions at higher flow rates and lower volumes. These conditions for retarded acids appear to be only at lower flow rates and higher volumes. The study of the acid concentration for gelled acids shows that both flow rate and volume increase as the concentration increases. For the formation with lower permeability, a higher flow rate is required to achieve the desired larger fracture half-length and smaller fracture width. Further investigations also show that the formation with higher Young’s modulus requires decreasing the acid volume and increasing the optimal flow rate, while the formation with higher closure stress requires increasing the acid volume and decreasing the flow rate.