Refracturing creates highly attractive opportunities to use existing wellbores for additional hydrocarbon recovery without having to drill a new well, reducing environmental impact and capital required. As completion designs improve through time, the prior vintage wells in a field are seen as attractive opportunities with stranded volumes of commercial hydrocarbons. Refracturing is a proven approach to economically recover those previously stranded resources. Reserve auditors are booking refracs, while mergers and acquisitions are ramping up with press releases noting the available refrac potential.

Refracturing parent wells has also become a valuable option for mitigating the impacts of fracture driven interactions from infill wells or child wells, leading many operators to co-develop refracturing of projects alongside new drill activity. Highly capital efficient improved recovery, improved performance of new drill wells, protection of existing parent wellbores, and environmental synergies are among the reasons that operators have adopted this strategy.