SPE 135989

Acid Tunneling Technology: Application Potential in Timan-Pechora

Carbonates
A. E. Akhkubekov, Rosneft, and V. N. Vasilyev, TNK-BP
Copyright 2010, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2010 SPE Russian Oil & Gas Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Moscow, Russia, 2628 October 2010.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been
reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its
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Abstract
Petroleum industry needs low-cost and efficient hydrocarbon production enhancement techniques. Oil and gas reserves
production need to be economic; therefore high-technology stimulation methods should be used.
The considerable part of hydrocarbon world reserves is associated with carbonate reservoirs. To enhance production in
carbonate reservoirs, the conventional and special techniques are applied. Sidetracking includes heavy expenses in both money
and time, since it requires rig installation and drilling crew gathering. The carbonate natural property of dissolution with acid is
used in acidizing and acid fracs. Acid treatment is inefficient in thick reservoirs, thus the treatment design becomes quite
complex to achieve efficient acid placement. The acid frac efficiency in carbonate reservoirs is controlled by matrix to fracture
porosity ratio, whereas acid fracs in fractured reservoir with zero matrix porosity will be unefficient.
This paper describes the possibility to apply a relatively new enhancement technique acid-tunneling in Timan-
Pechora oil province carbonate reservoirs in Russia.
In this paper the evaluation methods of vertical and multilateral well potential are specified; the productivity ratios of
various multilateral well designs in dual porosity reservoirs vs. permeability anisotropy are shown; the pseudoradial skin-
factor calculation procedures of multilateral well are described.
The well candidate technologic and economic selection criteria are also considered. As a result, the matrix of
production enhancement technology application in Timan-Pechora oil and gas province has been developed.

Introduction
The acid-tunneling technique is low-cost and efficient alternative compared to acid treatment and acid frac used for production
enhancement in carbonates. This technique is applicable in openhole completions in limestone or dolomite reservoirs, uses
coiled tubing and does not require drilling rig placement, has no fluid returns to the surface, resulting in very low
environmental impact. In cased holes, the incremental cost is related to the removal of casing section by mill or drill bit.
In acid-tunneling technology, acid is jetted under pressure from the special nozzle at the end of coiled tubing (Fig. 1),
thus dissolving the reservoir rock ahead, a wide tunnel with multiple wormholes is created.
The assembly is equipped with one or two knuckle joints, the deviation angle is controlled by coiled tubing pressure.
The orienting and logging tools can be added to the assembly. The reservoir contact area to the well improves significantly; the
bottom-hole porosity and permeability also increase. The tunnels are kept uncased which also provides reservoir to well
connection improvement. The tunnel length is 4 to 10 m depending on mineralogy and fluid type, but there are also cases of
tunnels of 30m in length (Mazerov, 2009). For tunnel initiation, strong acid (15-30% HCl) is used; for further circulation,
weaker acid (7-15% HCl) is used. The average acid rate to create 1 m of tunnel is about 5 m
3
. The penetration rate is 0.1-
1 m/min.
This technology is used worldwide to stimulate well productivity (Portman et al., 2008). The initial field trials of the
technology were in the massive Mara carbonate Field near Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela, where typical permeability is in the
range of 1 to 5 millidarcies. In the first five wells treated, 38 tunnels were constructed for a total length of over 350 m, at half
the cost of standard acid treatments and with at least twofold increases in production index.
The next series of operations was in Indonesia, Sumatran carbonate field (Portman and Royce, 2008), where despite of
high matrix permeability (220-4150 millidarcies), the acid treatment and acid frac had poor response. The reservoir thickness
of 5-7 m and proximity to oil-water contact were complicating factors. Two wells were acidized, in one well two tunnels were
created, in the second one six tunnels were created. Tunnels lengths were 3 to 8 m, total acid rate was 100 m
3
. The dramatic
results were achieved. The rate of the first well increased from 8 to 20 m
3
per day; the increase of the second well was from 8
2 SPE 135989
to 36 m
3
per day. Both saw reductions in water cut. This shows that even relatively short acid tunnels in a thin reservoir can
give significant production benefits. Before acid-tunneling, the series of acidizing operations were performed, without any
production increase.
After the acid-tunneling technique proved to be a success in Indonesia, it was applied in Kuwait. Two wells were
selected for treatment, the first well was vertical and the second well was horizontal. In the first well, two tunnels were created
of 4 and 12 m long, in the second well, twelve tunnels of 3 m each were created, spaced about 30 m apart. Production
improvement was 75%.

Classification of fractured reservoirs in Timan-Pechora oil province
Selection of fractured reservoirs development strategy is more efficient when the reservoir-analogue results analysis is
available. After determining the reservoir properties, fracture system parameters, connectivity, interaction between fractures
and matrix blocks, the reservoir type can be defined depending on fracture impact on reservoir quality and its further
development.
One of the most common is Nelsons classification (Nelson, 2001). The main classification advantage is the description
of the fracture systems having the major impact on development and potential challenges occur during production.
The fields, developed by Rosneft Company in Timan-Pechora oil/gas province, are mainly carbonate oil reservoirs
which differ in geology, depth of occurrence and petrophysical properties. One of the paper objectives was to classify
reservoirs under development and exploration in compliance with fracture impact on development and hydrocarbon
production.
The classification task is complicated by various fields maturity, absence of available data unification acquired from
1970s till now, different reservoir development stages (from green to brown field). In this paper we applied Nelsons approach
based on allocation of production data by well. The more the impact of fractures on the development is, the more anisotropic
the allocation of parameters by well will be.
The modified Lorenz plots were the basis of the reservoir type analysis. The percentage of the wells drilled at the field
is plotted on the x-axis, the percentage of cumulative production and maximum well rate is plotted on the y-axis. To plot the
graph, wells are ranked from minimum cumulative production (rate) to maximum cumulative production (rate). The criterion
of reservoir heterogeneity and reservoir type defined by fractured reservoir classification was the degree of graph deviation
from diagonal line at the origin. Fig. 2 shows the final graphs of producing reservoirs in Timan-Pechora oil/gas province. The
analysis allows classifying reservoirs, developed by Rosneft in Timan-Pechora (Fig. 3). It must be noted that upper Ordovician
oil saturated reservoirs are penetrated only in Srednemakarikhinskoye Field, no production. This reservoir is allocated to the
first type due to its low porosity (0.6%) and relatively impermeable matrix based on core analysis.

Technology application matrix
The next step was an attempt of looking through opportunities of using the acid tunneling technique from the reservoir
engineers point of view, its comparison to the existing well completion technologies as applied to various types of fractured
reservoirs. A large number of papers describe this technology application experience (Aguilera, 1995; Nelson, 2001; Reiss,
1980), here we will only highlight the key features of the most common methods.
The acid-tunneling technique in carbonate reservoirs will allow avoiding many disadvantages of conventional
techniques, and using its benefits.
Thus, compared to horizontal and multilateral well drilling, acid-tunneling requires less investment, has more potential
to be applied in massive reservoirs, and has less impact on well productivity by using natural acid dissolubility properties of
the reservoir, compared to conventional overbalanced drilling. The drilling efficiency in reservoir of first and second type,
where the objective is to cross maximum number of fractures, will depend on fracture density. For example, regional fracture
system (or fracture corridors) having the fracture density less then 1 fracture by 50 m will have low possibility of junction with
individual dendrite.
The acid-tunneling technology application as an alternative to acid frac enable to solve the artificial fracture
development issue in the maximum horizontal stress direction, optimize the working agent rate and operation cost, using
pointwise impact to productive layers of massive carbonate reservoirs.
Based on the above, the technology application success matrix was formed depending on reservoir type (Table 1).

Well Candidates for Acid Tunnelling
Selected well candidates should meet several technical and economic criteria. The main technical criterion is the openhole
section in the wellbore, this window is used for initial wash-out and further washing up of channels. For a cased hole, a special
mill is required to remove the casing in the selected interval, or a whipstock and a milling bit to open a window in the casing
wall. The other criterion is the rock solubility by acid. Reservoir rock solubility should be at least 80%.
Other technical criteria are well curvature, diameter and measured depth. Those parameters of a well candidate can
influence potential complications during the operation but not the operation itself.
Economic criteria include a wide range of reservoir properties related to well productivity and oil reserves. OWC
proximity can lead to higher post-acid tunneling watercut because tunnels normally deviate downwards from the vertical due
to natural reasons. It is also important to evaluate the well potential, specifically the remaining recoverable reserves,
SPE 135989 3
productive capabilities rate and watercut. If the fields (wells) active history-matched model is available, the effect from all
those economic parameters is accounted for in simulations.

Post-Acid Tunneling Well Productivity
After acid tunneling there are several factors that impact well productivity. The key factor is the completion geometry,
specifically the number of created tunnels, their length, diameter, and lateral position. Reservoir properties result in dual
porosity skin and PI reduction ratio due to fracture permeability anisotropy.
The effect of multilateral horizontal completion geometry on productivity has been reviewed in many sources (Larsen,
1996; Ozkan and Raghavan, 1991). Larsens analytical solution is applicable to thin reservoirs and long wellbore, the error is
3% at L/h>1.5. When the tunnel length is comparable to the reservoir thickness, Ozkan and Raghavans exact solution shall be
used to evaluate pseudoradial skin. The value of pseudoradial skin depends much on the number of branches and their length,
skin is a negative value and can reach -6. More tunnels N>6 lead to little change in productivity index.
The influence of natural fractures on productivity is accounted for by dual porosity skin (Hagoort, 2008). Dual porosity
skin evolves when calculating the productivity index for pseudo steady state from Warren-Root model, and has a positive
value. Dual porosity skin does not exceed 1 for standard interporosity flow coefficient ranging from 10
-6
to 10
-7
and
storativity ratio ranging from 0.001 to 0.5.
The effect of fracture permeability anisotropy on well productivity was evaluated through hydrodynamic modeling. In
dual porosity model, there was a sensitivity analysis performed to permeability variation in a horizontal direction for various
well configurations and geometries. The plot of productivity index reduction ratio versus anisotropy coefficient is almost linear
(Fig. 4). Because the anisotropy coefficient estimate normally has little reliability, it is agreed to apply the resultant linear
relation as a correction factor to productivity index for any configuration. A case with two symmetrical wellbores in
anisotropic reservoir is considered separately, since the effect of reservoir permeability anisotropy in this case is most
significant. The influence of well orientation is most prominent in the range of low anisotropy coefficients, fold of productivity
index reduction ratio can be as high as 3.
Post-acid tunneling well productivity growth is related not only to well effective radius increase, but also to bypassing
the near-wellbore skin-zone with poor permeability. In order to evaluate the efficiency of acid tunneling job correctly, it is
necessary to account for current skin in a pre-treatment vertical well.

Conclusion
This paper describes the possibility to apply the relatively new production enhancement technique acid-tunneling in oil/gas
basin of Timan-Pechora carbonate reservoirs in Russia. Carbonate reservoirs are classified by Nelsons technique for all
reservoirs in Timan-Pechora oil province, the evaluation methods of vertical and multilateral well potential are specified, the
productivity ratios of various multilateral well designs in dual porosity reservoirs vs. permeability anisotropy are shown,
pseudoradial skin calculation procedures for multilateral wells are described. The candidate well technological and economic
selection criteria are also considered. As a result, the matrix of production enhancement technologies application in Timan-
Pechora oil province has been developed.

Reference
Aguilera, R. 1995. Naturally Fractuerd Reservoirs. PennWell Publishig Company. 2
nd
edition. Tulsa. 521 p.
Hagoort, J. 2008. Stabilized Well Productivity in Dual-Porosity Reservoirs. SPERE 10 (1), October 2008: 940-947. SPE
110984-PA-P.
Larsen, L. 1996. Productivity Computations for Multilateral, Branched and Other Generalized and Extended Well Concepts.
SPE 36754, presented at SPE Annular Technical Conference & Exhibition, Denver, USA, 3-6 October, 1996: 739-751.
Mazerov, K. 2009. New technologies make well intervention faster, more accurate, cost-efficient, more reliable. Drilling
contractor, March/April: 62-69.
Nelson, R. 2001. Geologic Analysis of Naturally Fractured Reservoirs. 2
nd
edition. Gulf Professional Publishing. 332 p.
Ozkan, E., and Raghavan, R. 1991. New Solutions for Well-Test-Analysis Problems: Part 1 Analytical considerations. SPE
18615, SPEFE September 1991: 365-368.
Portman, L., Royce, T. 2008. Acid tunnels open oil pathways in Indonesia. BJ TechLine, Volume 7: 4.
Portman, L., et al. 2008. Acid-Tunneling Technique Shows Success in Carbonates. JPT November: 28-31.
Reiss, L.H. 1980. Reservoir Engineering Aspects of Fractured Formations. Editions technip. Paris. 1980. 108 p.
Strasburg, J., Clark, J. 2009. Acid Tunneling Stimulation in Oklahoma Limestone Using Coiled Tubing. SPE 120772,
presented at 2009 SPE Production and Operation Symposium, Oklahoma, USA, 4-8 April 2009



4 SPE 135989

Figure 1 Acid-tunneling tool, patent pending, comprises two kickoff joints that simplify tunnel extension



0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
% drilled wells
%

c
u
m
u
l
a
t
i
v
e

p
r
o
d
u
c
t
i
o
n
'South-Baganskoye P1-C3' 'Cherpayukskoye D1lh'
'Hasyreiskoye D1lh' S2gr' Hasyreiskoye
'Nadeyukskoye D1lh' 'Srednemakarihinskoye S1vk'
'North-Baganskoye P1as' S1vk' North-Baganskoye
'Sandiveyskoye C3' P1as+s' Sandiveyskoye
'Veyakoshorskoye C2m-C3'
'Baganskoye P1-C3' 'Baganskoye D3dm'
S1vk' Baganskoye
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
% drilled wells
%

m
a
x
i
m
u
m

o
i
l

r
a
t
e
'South-Baganskoye P1-C3' 'Cherpayukskoye D1lh'
'Hasyreiskoye D1lh' S2gr' Hasyreiskoye
'Nadeyukskoye D1lh' 'Srednemakarihinskoye S1vk'
'North-Baganskoye P1as' S1vk' North-Baganskoye
'Sandiveyskoye C3' P1as+s' Sandiveyskoye
'Veyakoshorskoye C2m-C3'
'Baganskoye P1-C3' 'Baganskoye D3dm'
S1vk' Baganskoye


Figure 2 Lorentz plots for Nelsons classification of the Timano-Pechora reservoirs


SPE 135989 5

IIb
III
IIa
I
?????????? ???????
?????????? ??????? ??????
100% Kf
100% Km
100% f m 100% f f
East-Bagan
D3dm
- P1as
C3
S1vk
D3dm
O3
P1k
P1as+s
C2m-C3
C2b
P1as
C3
D3fm
D1lh
D1lh
S2gr
D1lh
S2gr
D1lh
S2gr
P1as+s
C2-C3
S1vk
P1- 3
D3fr
IV
IIb IIb
III III
IIa
I
Matrix impact decreases
100% Kf
100% Km
100% f m 100% f f
D3dm
S1vk
- as
C3
D3dm
S1vk
P1k
P1as+s
C2m-C3
P1a
P1as
C3
D3fm
D1lh
D1lh
Nadeyukskoye D1lh
S2gr
D1lh
C2-C3
P1as+s
C3
1-
South-Bagan D3fr
C3
IV
Fractures impact increases
Cherpayukskoye
Hasyreyskoye
Vostochno-Veyakskoye
Verhnemakarihinskoye
P1as+s
P1
C3
Osoveyskoye
Osoveyskoye
Usino-Kushor
Nadeyukskoye
North-Bagan
Srednemakarihinskoye
Srednemakarihinskoye
Bagan
Vostochno-Veyakskoye
3 C South-Bagan
Srednemakarihinskoye
Vostochno-Veyakskoye
Sandiveyskoye
Vostochno-Veyakskoye Sandiveyskoye
Veyakoshorskoye
Veyakoshorskoye
Veyakoshorskoye
Veyakoshorskoye
Hasyreyskoye
Cherpayukskoye
East-Bagan
Salyukinskoye
North-Bagan
Salyukinskoye
North-Bagan


Figure 3 Timano-Pechora carbonates positioning in Nelsons classification

0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 1.20
(kx/ky)^0.5
J
/
J
0
Well || ky
Well || k

Figure 4 Productivity index decrease with horizontal anisotropy, the case of two equal symmetrical tunnels, parallel
and perpendicular to anisotropy axis

6 SPE 135989
Table 1 Technology efficiency matrix

Reservoir type
Technology
I II III IV
Horizontal/Multilateral
wells
+
Intersection of large
number of fractures
(increase productivity)
Large drainage area



+
Intersection of large
number of fractures
(increase productivity,
increase areal sweep
efficiency)
Large drainage area

+
High productivity
Large drainage area
Uniform displacement in presence of OWC
(GWC)

-
Expensive
Technical risks in geosteering, drilling problems (mud losses, stuck pipe)
Little effect in massive layers
Hydraulic/Acid
fracturing
+
Reactivation of
natural fractures
Bypass the skin zone

+
Reactivation of
natural fractures
Increase well effective
radius

+
Reactivation of
natural fractures
Increase well effective
radius
Creates additional
flow channels in matrix

+
Increase well effective
radius
Creates additional
flow channels in matrix

-
Expensive
Ineffective when major fracture networks are oriented in maximum horizontal stress direction
Little effect in massive layers
Acidizing
+
Low-cost

+
Improve conductivity of matrix near wellbore area
Low-cost
-
Ineffective due to short radius of penetration
Technical problems in massive layers
-
Technical problems
in massive layers
Acid tunneling
+
Low-cost
Significant increase of wellbore effective radius
Intersection of large number of fractures (increase productivity)
Bypass the near wellbore area with low permeability

+
Low-cost
Remove positive skin
Increase of wellbore
effective radius