《17_SPE-140524-MS-P》.pdf

SPE 140524 Practical Data Mining: Lessons Learned from the Barnett Shale of North Texas Randy F. LaFollette, SPE, and William D. Holcomb, SPE, Baker Hughes Copyright 2011, Society of Petroleum Engineers This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference and Exhibition held in The Woodlands, Texas, USA, 24–26 January 2011. 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 officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright. Abstract This paper documents a data-mining study of well, hydraulic fracture treatment, and production parameters for horizontal wells in the north Texas Barnett Shale play. In this study, the authors have analyzed well and production data from more than 13,400 producing Barnett wells. A subsample of over 3,300 horizontal wells was characterized with respect to detailed well architecture data such as drift direction and angle, lateral length, perforations, etc. The study uses Geographical Information System pattern-recognition techniques in conjunction with more traditional statistical techniques to interpret hidden trends in otherwise scattered data sets. This work provides a case study in the practical use of data-mining techniques to address questions of best practices in Shale Gas reservoirs. It is made possible because the availab