A. Abdollahipour; M. Fatehi Marji; H. Soltanian; E. A. Kazemzadeh
Abstract
The permeability and coupled behavior of pore pressure and deformations play an important role in hydraulic fracturing (HF) modeling. In this work, a poroelastic displacement discontinuity method is used to study the permeability effect on the HF development in various formation permeabilities. The numerical ...
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The permeability and coupled behavior of pore pressure and deformations play an important role in hydraulic fracturing (HF) modeling. In this work, a poroelastic displacement discontinuity method is used to study the permeability effect on the HF development in various formation permeabilities. The numerical method is verified by the existing analytical and experimental data. Then the propagation of a hydraulic fracture in a formation with a range of permeabilities is studied. The time required for propagation of an HF to 10 times its initial length is used to compare the propagation velocity in the formations with different permeabilities. The results obtained show that the HF propagation can be significantly delayed by a permeability less than almost 10-9 D. Also the effect of HF spacing on the propagation path is studied. It was shown that the stress shadowing effect of HFs remained for a longer spacing than in the elastic model due to the required time for fluid leak-off in the formation. Also the propagation angles are higher in the poroelastic model predictions than the elastic model. Therefore, it is proposed to use the poroelastic model when studying multi-HF propagation in order to avoid errors caused by neglecting the pore fluid effects on the HF propagation paths.
A. Abdollahipour; M. Fatehi Marji; A. R. Yarahmadi Bafghi; J. Gholamnejad
Abstract
Hydraulic fracturing (HF), as a stimulation technique in petroleum engineering, has made possible the oil production from reservoirs with very low permeability. The combination of horizontal drilling and multiple HF with various perforation angles has been widely used to stimulate oil reservoirs for ...
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Hydraulic fracturing (HF), as a stimulation technique in petroleum engineering, has made possible the oil production from reservoirs with very low permeability. The combination of horizontal drilling and multiple HF with various perforation angles has been widely used to stimulate oil reservoirs for economical productions. Despite the wide use of HF, there are still ambiguous aspects that require more investigation. Therefore, optimizing the geometry of the initial fractures using numerical methods is of high importance in a successful HF operation. Different geometrical parameters of the initial HF cracks including patterns, spacings, crack lengths, and perforation phase angles were modeled using the higher order displacement discontinuity method (HODDM) in horizontal and vertical oil wells. Several well-known issues in HF such as crack interference and crack arrest were observed in certain patterns of the HF cracks. Also the best possible arrangements of the HF cracks were determined for a better production. The results obtained were verified by the in-situ measurements existing in the literature. In addition, the best perforation phase angle in vertical wells was investigated and determined.
