Fracturing with carbon dioxide: Application status and development trend

Liu, He; Wang, Feng; Zhang, Jin; Meng, Siwei; Duan, Yu

doi:10.1016/s1876-3804(14)60060-4

Cited by 169 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Indeed, the negative aspects of water‐based hydraulic fracturing (use of large volumes of water, required treatment of flowback water, and water blocking of gas flow) continue to stimulate interest in developing fracturing fluids containing little or no water. These alternative fracturing fluids include CO 2 , N 2 , hydrocarbons, and their foams in order to reduce water consumption in unconventional shale reservoirs (Gupta, ; Gupta & Bobier, ; Liu et al, ; Wanniarachchi et al, ; Xue et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Saturation Relations and Their Diffusion‐Limited Equilibration in Gas Shale: Implications for Gas Flow in Unconventional Reservoirs

Tokunaga

Shen

Wan

et al. 2017

Water Resources Research

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Large volumes of water are used for hydraulic fracturing of low permeability shale reservoirs to stimulate gas production, with most of the water remaining unrecovered and distributed in a poorly understood manner within stimulated regions. Because water partitioning into shale pores controls gas release, we measured the water saturation dependence on relative humidity (rh) and capillary pressure (Pc) for imbibition (adsorption) as well as drainage (desorption) on samples of Woodford Shale. Experiments and modeling of water vapor adsorption into shale laminae at rh = 0.31 demonstrated that long times are needed to characterize equilibrium in larger (5 mm thick) pieces of shales, and yielded effective diffusion coefficients from 9 × 10−9 to 3 × 10−8 m2 s−1, similar in magnitude to the literature values for typical low porosity and low permeability rocks. Most of the experiments, conducted at 50°C on crushed shale grains in order to facilitate rapid equilibration, showed significant saturation hysteresis, and that very large Pc (∼1 MPa) are required to drain the shales. These results quantify the severity of the water blocking problem, and suggest that gas production from unconventional reservoirs is largely associated with stimulated regions that have had little or no exposure to injected water. Gravity drainage of water from fractures residing above horizontal wells reconciles gas production in the presence of largely unrecovered injected water, and is discussed in the broader context of unsaturated flow in fractures.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Saturation Relations and Their Diffusion‐Limited Equilibration in Gas Shale: Implications for Gas Flow in Unconventional Reservoirs

Tokunaga

Shen

Wan

et al. 2017

Water Resources Research

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“…The mentioned strategy has achieved great success, but has also met some limitations in field application. Fracturing with water‐based working fluid would consume a huge amount of water and induce potential damages to both the formation and the environment; hence, scholars have been trying to introduce non‐aqueous fracturing fluids (including carbon dioxide, liquefied petroleum gas, and nitrogen) recently. Due to low viscosity, carbon dioxide used as fracturing fluid would benefit induction of complex fractures in stimulated reservoirs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Field applications by PetroChina at the Changqing Oilfield have shown that the difficulties of carbon dioxide fracturing mainly lie in sand transportation, especially the formation of a sand block near the fracture entrance, which prohibits transportation of fracturing fluid and sand into the fracture from the wellbore. Fracture initiation and propagation are powered by hydraulic pressure at the bottom hole, which introduces the impending demand for a specific understanding of the flow field characters near the fracture entrance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flow field characters near fracture entrance in supercritical carbon dioxide sand fracturing

et al. 2019

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To investigate the flow field near fracture entrance and promote the development of sand fracturing with carbon dioxide as the working fluid, numerical simulation of multiphase flow was conducted with a 3D geological model considering the compressibility of carbon dioxide. The flow field of carbon dioxide alone was firstly investigated to lay the foundation for the analysis of multiphase flow, and then comparative analysis was conducted on the flow field of both the injecting sand from the pipe and the annulus. The results show that jet fracture with carbon dioxide can achieve a 4.46 MPa pressure boost at the fracture tip compared to the annulus pressure, which theoretically validates the feasibility of the mentioned technology. Sand fracturing can achieve a higher pressure boost in the cavity, while it needs greater pump pressure at the surface. Injecting sand from the annulus could decrease the need for pump pressure by 6.62 MPa at the condition of injecting 25% carbon dioxide from the annulus simultaneously, while the pressure difference between the cavity tip and the annulus decreases as a result. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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“…Hydraulic fracture is an efficient method for commercial extraction of hydrocarbons in shale and tight reservoirs and has contributed to the boom of shale gas in the United States [1,2]. In order to reduce water consumption and CO 2 emissions, SC-CO 2 fracturing is regarded as a potential futuristic technology [3]. The SC-CO 2 is a fluid state of carbon dioxide when it is held at or above its critical temperature (T c = 31.10 • C) and critical pressure (P c = 7.38 MPa).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fracture Initiation of an Inhomogeneous Shale Rock under a Pressurized Supercritical CO2 Jet

Liu

Cai

et al. 2017

Applied Sciences

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Due to the advantages of good fracture performance and the application of carbon capture and storage (CCS), supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO 2 ) is considered a promising alternative for hydraulic fracturing. However, the fracture initiation mechanism and its propagation under pressurized SC-CO 2 jet are still unknown. To address these problems, a fluid-structure interaction (FSI)-based numerical simulation model along with a user-defined code was used to investigate the fracture initiation in an inhomogeneous shale rock. The mechanism of fracturing under the effect of SC-CO 2 jet was explored, and the effects of various influencing factors were analyzed and discussed. The results indicated that higher velocity jets of SC-CO 2 not only caused hydraulic-fracturing ring, but also resulted in the increase of stress in the shale rock. It was found that, with the increase of perforation pressure, more cracks initiated at the tip. In contrast, the length of cracks at the root decreased. The length-to-diameter ratio and the aperture ratio distinctly affected the pressurization of SC-CO 2 jet, and contributed to the non-linear distribution and various maximum values of the stress in shale rock. The results proved that Weibull probability distribution was appropriate for analysis of the fracture initiation. The studied parameters explain the distribution of weak elements, and they affect the stress field in shale rock.

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Fracturing with carbon dioxide: Application status and development trend

Cited by 169 publications

References 17 publications

Water Saturation Relations and Their Diffusion‐Limited Equilibration in Gas Shale: Implications for Gas Flow in Unconventional Reservoirs

Water Saturation Relations and Their Diffusion‐Limited Equilibration in Gas Shale: Implications for Gas Flow in Unconventional Reservoirs

Flow field characters near fracture entrance in supercritical carbon dioxide sand fracturing

Fracture Initiation of an Inhomogeneous Shale Rock under a Pressurized Supercritical CO2 Jet

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