Hydraulic fracturing is a stimulation technique that allows for the commercial exploitation of oil and gas from reservoirs that would be otherwise uneconomical. Designing the fracture stimulation is a complicated process with many considerations, and better designs will ultimately improve production performance. Using fracture stimulation data and oil and gas production data for 33 wells in the Denver Basin, OLS regressions help determine which fracture stimulation design variables create the largest increases in post-fracture oil and gas production. This study finds that post-fracture cumulative production, particularly gas, is affected by the completion type—whether a new or existing geological formation in the well is fractured; the fracture type—the specific fracture treatment being used, such as a hybrid frac or water frac; and the average injection rate of the fracture treatment. These results help elucidate which treatment variables have the largest effect on production performance.
