Hydraulic fracture monitoring from microseismic allows operators to optimize completions through a clear understanding and correlation of the reservoir response to stimulation. Furthermore it helps operators to improve production and avoid out of zone growth by identifying patterns of fluid movement, fracture growth and connectivity. These critical insights allow refinements to the treatment plan, and provide useful insights for long-term improvements regarding well spacing, well design, and completion design. Shale reservoirs with very low permeability in the nano darcy range require a large fracture network to increase well performance. In these reservoirs, unless natural pre-existing fractures and faults have been reactivated and hydraulically opened to create a complex and well-connected network, pore pressure changes do not permeate far from the fractures. As a result, the microseismic pointset roughly corresponds to the size of the real fracture network which offers a means to estimate the stimulated rock volume (SRV). Although the producing fracture network could be smaller than the total SRV by a substantial percentage, it is expected that the effective network and the total SRV show a positive correlation. However, SRV is not the only indicator of well productivity. In a given SRV, the quality of the reservoir and parameters such as fracture conductivity and fracture spacing will affect production and can have a major impact on recovery calculations. In this study, stimulated rock volumes obtained from microseismic pointsets are correlated with actual field production. The correlations are used to illustrate how this concept can optimize treatment design, well spacing, and stage spacing through correlation of the reservoir response to hydraulic fracturing and production data. The correlation between production and SRV for each well shows that larger SRVs result in higher well production regardless of the percentage of the SRV that contains proppant filled fractures. The direct relationship of the microseismic pointsets and production can be used to predict a new well's potential productivity immediately upon completion of the stimulation job. This suggests that a key completion strategy is to create a large and effective SRV to provide maximum recovery and well performance monitored microseismically to provide production prediction.

The URTeC Technical Program Committee accepted this presentation on the basis of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). The contents of this paper have not been reviewed by URTeC and URTeC does not warrant the accuracy, reliability, or timeliness of any information herein. All information is the responsibility of, and, is subject to corrections by the author(s). Any person or entity that relies on any information obtained from this paper does so at their own risk. The information herein does not necessarily reflect any position of URTeC. Any reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of URTeC is prohibited.

No abstract

Production from two multilateral pads in the Horn River Basin is compared to microseismic-derived parameters. Microseismic was recorded on a near-surface array in both cases. The number of events recorded on each well tends to have a positive correlation to that well's initial production, while the magnitude of those events does not tend to be a good indicator of production in all zones. Fracture models created from located microseismic events also tend to correlate well to production: modeled fracture area, fracture volume and stimulated reservoir volume all show positive correlations. The method in which the rock fractures can also be an indicator of initial production. Wells with higher percentages of dip-slip type rock failures, which can be associated with hydraulic fractures, tend to have higher initial production. In contrast, wells with a larger proportion of strike-slip events, which are typical of fault reactivations in this zone, tend to have diminished production compared to neighboring wells with fewer reactivation events. By understanding what microseismic parameters positively and negatively impact initial production, operators can optimize well production. This can be done in real-time or in installments during lengthy completions programs through the identification of failure type, fracture geometry, and the relative number of events being recorded.

No abstract