Engineering Properties Of Ceramsite Proppant And Its Application On Hydraulic Fracture For A Coalbed Methane Well

Ceramsite is a porous engineering material with some basic mineral constituents, and has advantages of low density, high sphericity and high flow conductivity. It should be a good attempt to be adopted in hydraulic fracture, but related researches are really weak. In this paper, laboratory experiments are conducted on ceramsite, coated ceramsite and other typical proppants, which indicates that the coated ceramsite is the best proppant. Then, a coalbed methane well located in the soft coal area in Qinshui basin of China is selected as the research object, numerical simulations and statistic analyses are both conducted to obtain the granularity proportion and parameter optimization by using coated ceramsite. Some findings are achieved. Numerical simulation indicates that the granularity proportion for coated ceramsites of 40/60, 16/40 and 12/20 mesh should choose 1:6:2, which can receive a biggest proppant concentration and strongest flow conductivity. Construction parameters are all optimized for a best fracture performance. Micro seismic monitoring indicates that the actual fracture performance matches well with the simulated result. Drainage performance comparisons reveal that coated ceramsite is suitable for soft coal areas, and can achieve good drainage performances.