An Overview of New Developments in Shale Gas: Induced Seismicity Aspect

Abstract

New advances in technology such as advances in horizontal drilling, the use of multiwell drilling pads, and multi-stage hydraulic fracturing allow for the economic consideration of recovering formerly uneconomic, yet proven resources. Hydraulic fracturing perturbs the local stress field and causes slip/shearing in naturally fractured shale formations. Monitoring this process using microseismic techniques provides a valuable tool helping to detect the progression of the treatment and understand the efficacy of the operation. This article provides basic definitions regarding shale gas and development of shale gas reservoirs along with results of many new developments in the field of monitoring induced seismicity associated with hydraulic fracturing operations and characterizing of the efficacy of such operations.

Characteristics and mechanisms of human‐induced earthquakes in China from the QuakeQuake database

“…There are also growing concerns about human-induced earthquakes caused by shale-gas hydrofracturing. It is generally believed that simple fracturing will not produce large earthquakes and the magnitude of directly generated microseismic events is usually less than 0.5 (Chen et al, 2018;Rubinstein & Mahani, 2015;Zadeh & Talebi, 2019). In China, especially in the Sichuan Basin, whether it is long-term wastewater injection or short-term shale gas extraction remains debated (Lei et al, 2008(Lei et al, , 2013(Lei et al, , 2017.…”