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Permalink Reply by Mark on February 12, 2020 at 2:20pm

Hard to answer this without more information, but setting a "kill plug" is a semi permanent way to isolate that hole below the plug. This could be step one on walking away from the well. Or it could be a temporary thing with the operator planning to come back and remove / drill out that plug and resume frac'ing operations.

I am assuming that this is a well in which you have an interest. Is the operator a major? Or a smaller one who may be having financial limitations?

You can google Kill Plugs and find a variety of explanations. Probably the best "description" of Kill Plug is that this is type of plug that was set on the BP Offshore Blow out to try to kill that well. 

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Permalink Reply by DJC on February 12, 2020 at 2:59pm

The operator is one of the best, EOG. When the well was being drilled there was a number of issues with lost circulation. When fracking first started there was an issue after just a few stages, fracking operations stopped and a camera was run down hole, not sure what was seen. Fracking resumed 3 or 4 days later with only a few more stages fracked before the kill plug was installed. Fracking continues on other wells on the same drilling pad.

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Permalink Reply by Mark on February 12, 2020 at 9:23pm

Good that it is EOG - one can rule out ineptitude and financial capacity with that knowledge.

The camera down hole points to some sort of concern about downhole failure (including ruptured casing). This happens from time to time. The Lost circulation while drilling points to lateral encountering natural fractures that sucked up drilling fluid. Or an encounter with "induced fractures" from offsetting wells that would do the same thing.

Drilling lateral into faulted area would have this (fractures) - I thought that EOG has 3D across most of their area to be able to "see" faults if they were present.

This one well bore could be a train wreck downhole and the Kill Plug was set to permanently shut off that part of the lateral. Depending on where in the lateral their problems were encountered, there may still be some lateral left to frac and produce.

It is interesting that you note that frac operations continue on other wells on the same pad - I have a problem understanding how one well can have issues as noted while others do not.

Unless the one well was drilled in a different direction than the other wells on the pad.

Can you share the name of the lease on which this is happening? Or Message me privately with that info.

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Permalink Reply by DJC on February 13, 2020 at 9:05am

There are multiple wells to the west which were drilled over 3 years ago and are pretty good wells, there are another two wells to the east of this well that had no issues while drilling. These wells run from north to south are currently being fracked. Additionally there are multiple wells from the same pad running from south to north direction with no issues.

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Permalink Reply by Mark on February 13, 2020 at 11:16am

I wonder if the problems of lost circulation were tied to them drilling new lateral across fractured and depleted zones from offsetting wells?

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Permalink Reply by DJC on February 13, 2020 at 11:55am

I guess another piece of the puzzle is these new wells are allocation wells where the BH is well beyond where the adjacent wells were drilled and perforated for completion. Based on the BH difference between the new well and adjacent well my guess is that the completion (frac) issue is beyond the BH of the previous well and there are no previous wells anywhere close to the BH of the new well bore. The drilling issues encountered when drilling the new well started well within in the same horizontal distance of the previous well and continued to the final BH location.

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Permalink Reply by DJC on February 13, 2020 at 12:15pm

I also see that the depth is 500 foot deeper than the previous wells. Not sure I believe this as it appears the drilled curvature to horizontal are within 25 to 50 foot of the previous wells.

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Permalink Reply by Mark on February 13, 2020 at 12:24pm

Have you looked at the directional surveys and compared TVD's of laterals?

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Permalink Reply by James C. Maxwell on February 14, 2020 at 5:35pm

Mark, re your "induced fracture."

Amazing that a frac on a well several hundred feet away could cause a fissure so large, with capacity to suck up so much drilling fluid, as to be regarded as a loss of circulation,   The frac from the adjacent well must have just been spatially coincidental with a very weak area with lots of tensile stress, just barely sticking together and just ready to snap apart and fail at the slightest provocation.  (There's some people like that, too.)

Learn something new every day. 

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Permalink Reply by Mark on February 14, 2020 at 8:04pm

Could have been a frac job that intersected a natural fracture and/or fault.

I know back in the early days of the EF, one operator had proof of an offset frac'd well's frac fluid "hitting" another producing EF lateral that was about 1500' away. Felt it was natural fracture system that was intersected.

Just when you think you have the geology and Mother Nature figured out, she says "Sorry, No!"

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