Microseismic has long been a niche geophysical technology to image fracturing, but the expansion of the technology over the last decade is evident by the increasing number of workshops, papers in various publications, and the sheer number of papers and associated dedicated sessions. Details about the fracturing and deformation associated. Microseismic imaging of hydraulic fracturing distinguished. Fracture characterisation using microseismic imaging. Improved engineering of unconventional shale reservoirs, by shawn maxwell. Imaging hydraulic fracture zones from surface passive. Microseismic fracture mapping provides an unparalleled 4d measurement of the induced microseismicity associated with hydraulic fracturing. What have we learned about hydraulic fracturing shales. What does microseismic tell us about hydraulic fracture. Hydraulic fracturing and microseismic monitoring project. Introduction the development of unconventional reservoirs relies on hydraulic fracturing, a. Monitoring hydraulic fracturing, especially in tightgas shales and sands.
Corporate office contact info 10777 westheimer, suite 250 houston, tx 77042 8665930032 toll free 77812323 office 77812326 fax. Sign up below for the latest news, case studies, webcasts and upcoming event info. Microseismic monitoring is the passive observation of very smallscale earthquakes which occur in the ground as a result of human activities or industrial processes such as mining, hydraulic fracturing, enhanced oil recovery, geothermal operations or underground gas storage. Terrascience doe national energy technology laboratory lawrence berkeley national laboratory contract no.
Hydraulic fracturing also called fracking, fracing, hydrofracking, fraccing, fracing, and hydrofracturing is a well stimulation technique in which rock is fractured by a pressurized liquid. Short course disc, microseismic imaging of hydraulic fracturing. Unfortunately, at the time of these tests the inclinometers were. Detetection of mechanical failure during hyraulic fracturing through passive seismic microseismic. Introduction, microseismic imaging of hydraulic fracturing. We use numerical examples to test the ability of the proposed technique to produce highresolution images of microseismic locations. Practical application to engineering problems is stressed, including environmental concerns associated with the contamination of shallow aquifers.
Downhole microseismic monitoring pinnacle pioneered realtime microseismic mapping services in the petroleum industry and has been performing fracture mapping services for over 20 years. An important requirement of this exploration is the identification and characterization of microseismic events. O m h 17 1949 h llib t f d th fi t ton march 17, 1949, halliburton performed the first two commercial hydraulic fracturing treatments in stephens. Investigating the possibility of locating microseismic. This course is a revision of main concepts of hydraulic fracturing in conventional formations, including tight sandstones, and the application of microseismic imaging to fracturing operations. Part 1 presents the analytical tools needed to determine the source parameters, focal mechanisms, and faultplane orientations.
Improved engineering of unconventional shale reservoirs microseismic monitoring is the key. Realtime microseismic monitoring technology for hydraulic. Hydraulic fracture creation, in unconventional resources, is essential for optimizing hydrocarbon recovery. Microseismic technology follows the well established. As demonstrated by microseismic events, shale gas reservoirs usually presented irregular and complex fracture network upon hydraulic fracturing cipolla et al.
Microseismic science grew out of earthquake seismology and focuses on microearthquakes i. Microseismic imaging of hydraulic fracture complexity in. Realtime microseismic enables effective stimulation. Engineers began using this technique during hydraulic fracturing in oil and gas operations as early as the 1980s. Imaging hydraulic fractures by microseismic migration for. Live hydraulic fracture monitoring and diversion a propagating hydraulic fracture generates acoustic noise. Microseismic monitoring msm is the detection of signals generated by small seismicor microseismicevents. Note that microseismic events caused by hydraulic fracture growth as well as.
Bryksin2 provide some russian examples of passive microseismic applications for imaging hydraulic fracture zones. September 2011 the better business publication serving. Improved engineering of unconventional shale reservoirs microseismic monitoring is the key technology to image hydraulic fractures. A pilot study on a coal bed methane reservoir in indonesia over the last decade, microseismic monitoring has emerged as a considerable and capable technology for imaging stimulated hydraulic fractures in the. Unveiling the signals from extremely noisy microseismic. Get a more complex description of your treated reservoir in realtime for optimal field development. Hydraulic fracture stimulations are critical for the development of unconventional reservoirs, and the growing interest in shale reservoirs has resulted in the rapid expansion of microseismic fracture imaging. In spe hydraulic fracturing technology conference, 111.
Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing revolutionized the exploitation of tight and unconventional oil and gas reservoirs. Hydraulic fracturing insights from microseismic monitoring. The objective of the microseismic imaging was to define the fracture growth characteristics during these well stimulations. The resulting hydraulic fractures hfs during a fracturing treatment are expected to be. Microseismic imaging of hydraulic fracture complexity in the. Microseismic technology has been proven to be a practical approach for insitu monitoring of fracture growth during hydraulic fracture stimulations. Microseismicity and treatment parameters thousands of fracturing stimulations have been monitored using a microseismic technique, in which broad. Over the last decade, microseismic monitoring has emerged as a considerable and capable technology for imaging stimulated hydraulic.
Neda boroumand and dave eaton, university of calgary, calgary, alberta neda. The earth is naturally under tectonic stress, and earthquakes happen all the time as a result of continental drift. Typically, around the world there are more than 20 earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 2. Seg and your local society are proud to provide this premier course in passive microseismic, hydraulic fracturing, and unconventional shale reservoirs. Through rtm of microseismic waveforms in the current stage, we can determine fractured zones created in previous stages by imaging area of strong scattering. The shale varies between 300 to thick, and is extremely low permeability approximately 0. Pdf microseismic imaging of hydraulically inducedfractures in.
Improved engineering of unconventional shale reservoirs. Evaluation of microseismicity related to hydraulic. Borehole microseismic imaging of hydraulic fracturing. Microseismic based fracturing monitoring can be used for realtime imaging of hydraulic fractures, so it has been widely used to evaluate the fracturing effect of shale gas reservoirs and to direct the optimization and adjustment of fracturing parameters. Microearthquakes microseismic monitoring is probably best known in the petroleum community as a diagnostic and imaging tool for hydraulic. He was an spe distinguished lecturer and the 2014 seg distinguished instructor short course microseismic imaging of hydraulic fracturing. During highpressure fluid injections of a hydraulic fracture treatment, microseismic emissions occur as cracks form and. Request pdf microseismic imaging of hydraulic fracturing. Spe 38573 microseismic and deformation imaging of hydraulic fracture growth and geometry 3 inclinations include the pressure in the fracture, fracture length, height and azimuth, the moduli of the various rock layers, and the stress in the layers contacting the fracture. History of hydraulic fracturing continued in 1949,yg an exclusive license for the hydraulic fracturing process was granted to the halliburton oil well cementing company. This course is a survey of microseismic imaging of hydraulic fracturing. The process involves the highpressure injection of fracking fluid primarily water, containing sand or other proppants suspended with the aid of thickening agents into a wellbore to create cracks in. Until recently, the emphasis of microseismic imaging has been on classifying the location of events maxwell et al. Effective hydraulic fracture stimulation is critical for shale development, and microseismic is the only technology able to map the growth of these hydraulic fracture networks.
Microseismic method is an essential technique for monitoring the dynamic status of hydraulic fracturing during the development of unconventional reservoirs. Therefore, for multistage hydraulic fracturing, recorded waveforms from microseismic events induced in a more recent stage may be scattered by fractured zones from previous stages. The book, which accompanies the 2014 seg distinguished instructor short course, describes the design, acquisition, processing, and. Hydraulic fracturing will be main drive force in oil and gas production from tight hydrocarbon reservoirs in the future. Addtitionally, microseismic signal attributes, such as the radiation pattern of compressional and shear waves can be used to constrain the fracture plane orientation using focal mechanism techniques see maxwell et al. Sensitive receivers in a network array detect these microseismic events and thereby locate a part of the fracture. Barnett shale development 4 1980 1990 2000 year 0 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 mscfpd massive water fracs horizontal wells microseismic 00 m n e spe77440.
Microseismic monitoring has rapidly evolved in acquisition methodology, data processing, and in this paper, we evaluate the progression of this technology with emphasis on their applications in barnett shale gas reservoir. It shows the use of realtime microseismic imaging of the fracture to guide the application of the diversion slugs using proppant, fiber and fluid additives. Much of the current understanding of hydraulic stimulation of shales can be traced back to the barnett shale, where well engineering eventually led to a successful combination of massive water fracs, horizontal drilling and microseismic monitoring. Improved engineering of unconventional shale reservoirs and authored the first microseismic textbook as an seg monograph by the same title. Of these applications, microseismic monitoring of hydraulic fracture operations for oil and gas stimulations is cur rently the most widely used.
One of the key factors in economic development of shale and other unconventional reservoirs is effective hydraulic fracturing. To monitor the hydraulic fracturing, emissions from the microseismic events should be mapped and recorded. Geomechanics of hydraulic fracturing microseismicity. Hydraulic fracturing figure 1 is developed to enable. Microseismic monitoring has been used to image hydraulic fracture growth in the barnett shale. With the expansion of microseismic imaging of hydraulic fracture stimulations in the past few years, interest has evolved from simply the event locations to extracting more information from the signals through advanced source characterization. This study is a case study of a downhole monitoring of the hydraulic fracturing in a. The mapped hydraulic fracture shows a slight asymmetry of the.
By using realtime microseismic data the resulting stimulation was successful by achieving an. The north dakota industrial commission hydraulic fracturing and microseismic monitoring project submitted by. How it works pset downhole utilizes the full waveform and kirchhoff imaging principles to locate each event. This helps understanding the capability of hydraulic fracturing operation to disturb the surface and subsurface environment at the vicinity of stimulated wells. Microseismic has long been a niche geophysical technology to image fracturing, but the expansion of the technology over the last decade is evident by the increasing number of workshops, papers in various publications, and the sheer number of papers and associated dedicated sessions at the seg annual meeting. Improved engineering of unconventional shale reservoirs, shawn maxwell download citation file.
This course will provide an overview of microseismic theory and practical application, from acquisition. Hydraulic fracturing is an essential technology for hydrocarbon development in a conglomerate reservoir with low or ultralow porosity and permeability. The first three of this course overviews the main concepts of hydraulic fracturing and the last two days. Improved engineering of unconventional shale reservoirs presented by shawn maxwell, seg 2014 distinguished instructor short course hydraulic fracture stimulations are critical for the development of unconventional reservoirs, and the growing interest in shale reservoirs has resulted in the rapid expansion of microseismic fracture imaging. Imaging hydraulic fracture zones from surface passive microseismic data vladimir a. What can microseismic tell us about hydraulic fracturing.
What have we learned about hydraulic fracturing shales after 15 years of microseismic imaging. Microseismic location accuracy for hydraulic fracturing dwti fracture geometry during the hydraulic fracturing, microseismicity was recorded by 96 of the 150 available geophones via arcos digital acquisition system. Microseismic based fracturing monitoring can be used for realtime imaging of hydraulic fractures, so it has been widely used to evaluate the fracturing effect of. Microseismic imaging of hydraulically inducedfractures in. In order to gather useful information from the data, locating areas with high population of microseismic events will be necessary in order to increase the. Microseismic monitoring has become a standard technique to map the development of hydraulic fracturing. In addition to being saved as an independent file, each detected event was examined to determine which geophone along. Improved engineering of unconventional shale reservoirs seg distinguished instructor series no. It is designed to give the attendees a rudimentary understanding of this technology based on the science at its foundation, the means and methods by which it is carried out, and the benefits it brings to the users. Large scale hydraulic fracturing is required to stimulate production in the field to economic levels 1. An overview of microseismic imaging of hydraulic fracturing.
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