Microseismic Interpretation of Hydraulic Fracture Processes in Unconventional Reservoirs: Geomechanics, Numerical Simulations and Data Integration
Abstract
New techniques are presented to advance microseismic interpretation of the hydraulic
fracture process. Numerical simulations were developed to present the majority of the claims
of novelty and a few previously developed ones were modi ed to present new insights.
First, two processing techniques are used for analysis of a microseismic double couple
source mechanism. A time shifted hyperbolic Radon transform scheme was applied to a
synthetic and a real microseismic event to obtain its lag time and spatial location.
Second, a new method is developed to deal statistically with missing microseismic events
that are too far from the monitoring well to be detected. This new method, b value energy
correction method (MbEC), begins by unbiasing the catalogue as a function of distance and
magnitude, then characterizing the frequency magnitude distribution and nally correcting
for missing radiated seismic energy. The corrected energy is compared to the fracture energy
to calculate seismic e ciency and the fracture energy is compared to injection energy to
compute fracture e ciency. The energy correction and comparisons are useful for evaluating
changes in microseismic activity.
Third, a numerical algorithm is developed to analyse the energy breakdown of the hydraulic
fracture process. This energy breakdown based model technique is developed by
incorporating microseismic events in space. This model is able to constrain and validate
the model geometry through parameter adjustments. The novelty is in the integration of
microseismic observations in the numerical simulation that was developed speci cally to
characterize the reservoir.
Fourth, a numerical algorithm is developed that couples the multi-physics interaction
between formation elasticity, fracture
uid
ow and mechanics equations to initiate and
propagate a fracture. The novelty in this algorithm lies in using the microseismic events as
the fracture propagation criteria, in time and space, for reservoir property characterization. Case studies are presented in all chapters to illustrate the applicability of each new idea.
Description
Keywords
Geophysics
Citation
Boroumand, N. (2016). Microseismic Interpretation of Hydraulic Fracture Processes in Unconventional Reservoirs: Geomechanics, Numerical Simulations and Data Integration (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26911