Using Geomechanical Modeling to Quantify the Impact of Natural Fractures on Well Performance and Microseismicity—Application to the Wolfcamp, Permian Basin

Ouenes, Ahmed; Umholtz, N.; Aimène, Yamina

doi:10.15530/urtec-2015-2173459

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 15 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Unfortunately, Maity (2018) analysis of the HFTS-1 microseismic data at few stages was limited to superposing it to seismic attributes highlighting the role of the natural fractures as shown in Figure 8. In both cases described in this section from Reagan county, we see that seismic data provided the necessary input to quantitatively in the case of Ouenes et al (2015) example, and qualitatively in the case of HFTS-1 described by Maity (2018), capture the effects of natural fractures on the stimulation as shown by the microseismic data. The question is what alternatives do operators have in case they lack seismic data and a detailed description of natural fractures from core or image logs?…”

Section: What Matters In Hydraulic Fracturing and How To Capture It Wmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Maity (2018) used the HFTS-1 microseismic results after the fact to better understand stress variations and find possible correlations with hydraulic fracturing parameters. Three years before Maity (2018), in the same Wolfcamp formation and also in Reagan county, Ouenes et al (2015) prefered to understand the role of the natural fractures and their interaction with hydraulic fractures by predicting the resulting microseismicity.…”

Section: What Matters In Hydraulic Fracturing and How To Capture It Wmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When studying a given problem, one can chose the threshold needed to filter a continuous fracture model to capture the physics of the stated problem. Using the continuous coherency map (Figure 5a), Ouenes et al (2015) used a cut-off that lead to a distribution of the key natural fractures (Figure 5b,c) that could influence the hydraulic fracturing process. This natural fracture distribution when used in full continuum mechanics equations solved with the Material Point Point (MPM) as shown in Aimene and Ouenes (2015), leads to multiple results including the differential stress (Figure 6b).…”

Section: What Matters In Hydraulic Fracturing and How To Capture It Wmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(a) coherency derived from seismic and resulting (b) Equivalent Fracture Model used as input in the (c) MPM derived geomechanical simulation (modified fromOuenes et al 2015) …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Comparison between the predicted strain derived from the MPM geomechanical simulation and the recorded microseismcity at all the stages (modified fromOuenes et al 2015) …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Developing Unconventional Reservoirs Using Limited Natural Fractures Statistics – Challenges and Opportunities

Ouenes¹

2019

Sixth EAGE Shale Workshop

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: What Matters In Hydraulic Fracturing and How To Capture It Wmentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: What Matters In Hydraulic Fracturing and How To Capture It Wmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: What Matters In Hydraulic Fracturing and How To Capture It Wmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(a) coherency derived from seismic and resulting (b) Equivalent Fracture Model used as input in the (c) MPM derived geomechanical simulation (modified fromOuenes et al 2015) …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Comparison between the predicted strain derived from the MPM geomechanical simulation and the recorded microseismcity at all the stages (modified fromOuenes et al 2015) …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Developing Unconventional Reservoirs Using Limited Natural Fractures Statistics – Challenges and Opportunities

Ouenes¹

2019

Sixth EAGE Shale Workshop

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Estimation of Propped Volume Permeability Using Strain from Geomechanical Modeling of Interacting Hydraulic and Natural Fractures - Application to the Eagle Ford

Ouenes

Bachir

Paryani

et al. 2015

Day 1 Tue, October 20, 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A new workflow that uses the strain derived from geomechanical modeling of hydraulic fractures interacting with natural fractures is applied to an Eagle Ford well. The derived strain map is used to estimate the asymmetric half lengths that are input in any frac design software able to incorporate this new information. The simplistic symmetric and bi-wing design is revised by adjusting the leakoff coefficient, injection rate, and proppant concentration resulting in asymmetric half lengths that do not exceed the lengths of those provided by the strain map. Once the half lengths and orientation from the frac design match those provided by geomechanical simulation, the propped length and other key results provided by the frac design software may be used to optimize the well's completion. This process could be used iteratively to optimize desired metrics and could also be used to improve reservoir simulation. The derived strain map may be propagated in the stimulated geomechanical layer to form a strain volume which may in turn be used to estimate the stimulated permeability. In this paper, we used a radial function to relate the stimulated permeability to the strain within the maximum half lengths provided by the strain map. Two calibration constants are needed in the radial functions and could be estimated by history matching or pressure transient analysis. An adaptive Local Grid Refinement (LGR) and variable stimulated permeability provide a realistic representation of the stimulated reservoir volume (SRV). After history matching, the resulting pressure distribution allows an accurate selection of refrac or new well candidates, for optimizing well spacing, and for estimating an accurate EUR.

show abstract

Sweet Spot Identification and Prediction of Frac Stage Performance Using Geology, Geophysics, and Geomechanics - Application to the Longmaxi Formation, China

Xiao¹,

Wang²,

Aoues

et al. 2015

All Days

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Microseismic data is evaluated with surface seismic and analyzed in addition to treatment data to understand the variance in performance of frac stages at three wells drilled in the Longmaxi formation, China. In well H1, the microseismic is dominated by fault reactivations, and is of little use in analyzing the performance of individual frac stages. In the wells H2 and H3, the use of maximum curvature derived from surface seismic showed strong qualitative correlation with microseismicity. To quantify the effects of shale properties on the frac stage performances, seismic attributes were used to derive geologic models of porosity, total gas, fracture density and Poisson's Ratio which were combined to form the Shale Capacity. The comparison of the Shale Capacity with the production log of H1 demonstarates how the model explains the performance of the frac stages away from the faults. The same observations could be made using the extent of good Shale Capacity away from the faults to explain the important difference in production between H2 and H3. Given the importance of the faults and their geomechanical impact on the performance of the frac stages, a geomechanical workflow able to simulate the interaction between the hydraulic and natural fractures is applied to the H1 well. The resulting strain and J Integral are able to explain the performance of the frac stages in H1 thus confirming the importance of the natural fractures and the need to account for their geomechanical effects.

show abstract

Using Geomechanical Modeling to Quantify the Impact of Natural Fractures on Well Performance and Microseismicity—Application to the Wolfcamp, Permian Basin

Cited by 4 publications

References 15 publications

Developing Unconventional Reservoirs Using Limited Natural Fractures Statistics – Challenges and Opportunities

Developing Unconventional Reservoirs Using Limited Natural Fractures Statistics – Challenges and Opportunities

Estimation of Propped Volume Permeability Using Strain from Geomechanical Modeling of Interacting Hydraulic and Natural Fractures - Application to the Eagle Ford

Sweet Spot Identification and Prediction of Frac Stage Performance Using Geology, Geophysics, and Geomechanics - Application to the Longmaxi Formation, China

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About