Nature Had It Right After All!—Constructing a "Plant Root"-Like Drainage System With Multiple Branches and Uninhibited Communication With Pores and Natural Fractures

Abstract If reservoirs engineers could drill wells, they would surely not drill a single, small diameter hole, with the walls of that hole damaged to the point they are initially impermeable! They would probably drill a hole with no damage to the walls, preferably with open fractures or wormholes emanating from that main hole. They would further likely construct more of a network of branches, mimicking the root structure of plants, evolved to efficiently drain nutrients from a soil reservoir. The problem, of course, has been that the technology required to create such a drainage system has been commercially unavailable. This situation changed, in Venezuela, in late 2005. This paper describes several wells where multiple, relatively short-length laterals were constructed, maintaining communication with the natural fracture network of the formation, imposing no damage. The paper details the target reservoir's properties and its history of poor production. The new production figures are contrasted to the historical field numbers. The method used was to simply dissolve a system of short laterals. This was achieved by pumping hydrochloric acid though a specially designed jetting assembly, attached to the bottom of a 1 ½″ coiled tubing unit. This revolutionary method not only creates a "reservoir engineer's" hole, it does so using simple equipment at a low-cost. Further details on the equipment are provided in the paper.