Spatial distribution of production in a Marcellus Shale well: Evidence for hydraulic fracture stress interaction

Bunger, Andrew P.; Cardella, D.J.

doi:10.1016/j.petrol.2015.05.021

Cited by 24 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Yet, so far, all the previous studies based on fracture mechanics [4,[19][20][21][22][23][24] have dealt with the propagation of one hydraulic crack or, very recently, a few parallel (i.e. non-intersecting) ones spaced by about 10 m [25][26][27][28][29]. These studies have been important for clarifying the micromechanics of the problem, especially the complicated interaction of crack tip singularity with viscous flow and capillarity near the tip.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Growth model for large branched three-dimensional hydraulic crack system in gas or oil shale

Chau

Bažant

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Growth model for large branched three-dimensional hydraulic crack system in gas or oil shale

Chau

Bažant

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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“…They include characterization of the stress singularity at the tip of a water-filled advancing crack, flow of water of controlled viscosity along the crack, with or without proppant grains, and water leak-off into the shale. Interactions of parallel cracks, their stability, closing, and stress-shadow effect, have also been clarified (12)(13)(14)(15). Discrete element models used in most commercial softwares, in which the hydraulic crack was simulated by a band of inter-element separations (16,17), led to similar results.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

Branching of hydraulic cracks enabling permeability of gas or oil shale with closed natural fractures

Rahimi-Aghdam

Chau

Lee

et al. 2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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While the hydraulic fracturing technology, aka fracking (or fraccing, frac), has become highly developed and astonishingly successful, a consistent formulation of the associated fracture mechanics that would not conflict with some observations is still unavailable. It is attempted here. Classical fracture mechanics, as well as the current commercial softwares, predict vertical cracks to propagate without branching from the perforations of the horizontal well casing, which are typically spaced at 10 m or more. However, to explain the gas production rate at the wellhead, the crack spacing would have to be only about 0.1 m, which would increase the overall gas permeability of shale mass about 10,000×. This permeability increase has generally been attributed to a preexisting system of orthogonal natural cracks, whose spacing is about 0.1 m. But their average age is about 100 million years, and a recent analysis indicated that these cracks must have been completely closed by secondary creep of shale in less than a million years. Here it is considered that the tectonic events that produced the natural cracks in shale must have also created weak layers with nano-or micro-cracking damage. It is numerically demonstrated that a greatly enhanced permeability along the weak layers, with a greatly increased transverse Biot coefficient, must cause the fracking to engender lateral branching and the opening of hydraulic cracks along the weak layers, even if these cracks are initially almost closed. A finite element crack band model, based on recently developed anisotropic spherocylindrical microplane constitutive law, demonstrates these findings.Fracking | Poromechanics | Biot Coefficient | Seepage forces | Damage

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“…Analyzing over 100 production logs from horizontal wells in a variety of plays, Cipolla et al (2010) show that 30%-40% of the perforation clusters are nonproductive, while in 4 examples, the top producing cluster (out of about 30 in all cases) produces 15%-45% of the total gas generated by the well. In another example, which is more detailed but for only a single well, Bunger and Cardella (2015) present statistical analysis of a production log from a Marcellus Shale gas well. This data shows contributions from all of the 105 perforation clusters.…”

Section: Field Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Four critical issues for successful hydraulic fracturing applications

Bunger¹,

Lecampion²

2024

Rock Mechanics and Engineering

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This paper reviews four critical mechanisms for successful applications of hydraulic fracturing that have emerged or grown in importance over the past 2 decades. These critical issues are managing height growth, decreasing near-wellbore tortuosity, predicting and engineering network versus localized growth geometry, and promoting simultaneous growth of multiple hydraulic fractures. Building on the foundation of decades of research relevant to each area but with an emphasis on advances within the past 20 years, the review presents available field evidence, laboratory data, and modeling insights that comprise the current state of knowledge. Fluid viscosity, injection rate, and in situ stresses are shown to appear as controlling parameters across all of these issues. The past contributions and limitations on future developments point to a future in which advances are enabled by a combination of fully coupled 3D simulations, advanced laboratory experiments, vastly expanded characterization capabilities, and order of magnitude improvements in monitoring resolution.

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Spatial distribution of production in a Marcellus Shale well: Evidence for hydraulic fracture stress interaction

Cited by 24 publications

References 16 publications

Growth model for large branched three-dimensional hydraulic crack system in gas or oil shale

Growth model for large branched three-dimensional hydraulic crack system in gas or oil shale

Branching of hydraulic cracks enabling permeability of gas or oil shale with closed natural fractures

Four critical issues for successful hydraulic fracturing applications

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