All too often we hear, "I can't afford to use your completion diagnostics on this job," or "the cost of the information is too high." While our technologies are some of the lowest-cost oilfield services available, in many cases they are still compared to the cost of the stimulation treatment rather than to the value they add to the reservoir.

The well at opposite illustrates an acid treatment on a well in west Texas. The "before" image shows an initial 6,000-gal acid treatment pumped in three equal stages with diverter between each stage. All three acid stages are in yellow with the diverters in red (first) and blue (last). Clearly very little diversion took place and the lower interval was not acidized.

The November-March production data indicate fairly constant production of 200 Mcf/D and 90 BOPD. Based on the lack of acid diversion into the lower zone identified by the tracers, a packer was then set at X890 ft and the lower interval was targeted and reacidized in March. As you can see, the gas production was tripled and the oil production nearly doubled with this small 3,500-gal acid treatment.

At what cost? The tracer and SpectraScanTM image cost was nearly equal to the acid job cost, but without the technology, how much of the reservoir's value would have remained unrealized? The cost of technology must be applied against the incremental reservoir value gained as a result of using the technology.