An assessment of open hole cavity completion for coalbed methane reservoirs in La Guajira-Colombia

Coalbeds in the San Juan Rancheria Sedimentary basin of Colombia contain many promising coalbed methane reservoirs. These coalbeds currently support active surface mining of coal for power generation.; The project is located in the Cerrejón formation which is a tertiary age sedimentary sequence. The Cerrejón Formation contains more than 70 coal seams, some of them can be traced for 50 kilometers along the entire length of the sedimentary basin. Today, the project has 25 wells in the evaluation stage with encouraging results in some of them. Twenty-four wells have been hydraulically fractured and only one has been openhole completed.; Still major concerns about the coal seams completion techniques arises, in order to find the best way which allow the methane gas to be liberated from the coal matrix. Due to the above, a geomechanic test facility was adapted to accommodate the testing conditions to investigate mechanical rock properties that will permit the understanding of the physical strength of coal seams from the reservoir of interest that could allow to apply a new technique known as openhole cavity completion.