Optimizing Horizontal Completion Techniques in the Barnett Shale Using Microseismic Fracture Mapping

Abstract

The Barnett Shale of North Texas is an ultra low permeability reservoir that must be effectively fracture stimulated in order to obtain commercial production. As a result, techniques to optimize hydraulic fracturing effectiveness have evolved over the past decade.

Coupled Geomechanics and Fluid Flow Model for Production Optimization in Naturally Fractured Shale Reservoirs

“…The increased compressive stress near a fracture tends to inhibit the initiation of nearby parallel fractures providing a natural diversion mechanism along the wellbore. In consequence, if initiation points are too close together, the stress shadows inhibit growth along the mid-section of the wellbore and encourage fracture growth at the toe and heel (Fisher et al, 2004).…”

New type curves for analyzing horizontal well with multiple fractures in shale gas reservoirs

“…3(a). It is reported in the literature that for extremely low permeabilities, the contribution from the reservoir beyond SRV is negligible (Fisher et al, 2004;Mayerhofer et al, 2005;Maxwell et al, 2009;Medeiros et al, 2008;Ozkan et al, 2011) and as a result, the outer reservoir can be ignored …”

Productivity estimations for vertically fractured wells with asymmetrical multiple fractures

“…In addition, some microseismic fracture mapping shows that fracture network can be generated by hydraulic fracturing treatments in practices (Fisher et al, 2004(Fisher et al, , 2005Mayerhofer et al, 2006). The fractures are not single and planar in reservoirs; they have irregular branches which are found by direct observations on fractured core samples (Germanovich et al, 1997a,b).…”