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Advances in Hydraulic Fracturing and Reservoir Characterization
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Advances in Hydraulic Fracturing and Reservoir Characterization

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "H1: Petroleum Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2024 | Viewed by 3224

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Fatick Nath

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Petroleum Engineering Program, Texas A&M International University, 5201 University Blvd, Laredo, TX 78041, USA
Interests: hydraulic fracturing; foamed frac-fluids; reservoir geomechanics; reservoir characterization; digital image correlation; data analytics; petroleum production; enhanced geothermal system; wellbore stability
Dr. Chongwei Xiao

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Natural Gas Engineering, Texas A&M University— Kingsville, 917 W. Avenue B, Kingsville, TX 78363, USA
Interests: rheology of frac-fluids; CO2-enhanced recovery; gas hydrates; reservoir characterization; production optimization
Dr. Deepak Ganta

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Engineering, Texas A&M International University, 5201 University Blvd, Laredo, TX 78041, USA
Interests: machine learning; nanomaterials for energy applications; material characterization
Dr. Zhiyang Li

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Engineering, Texas A&M International University, 5201 University Blvd, Laredo, TX 78041, USA
Interests: petroleum geology; shale characterization; sedimentology; stratigraphy; basin analysis

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Greetings from the Guest Editor of the Special Issue of Energies on Advances in Hydraulic Fracturing and Reservoir Characterization.

Safe and economic production from unconventional reservoirs relies on creating a stimulated reservoir volume or a fracture network by fracturing using optimum amounts of frac-fluids, chemical additives, and proppants while reducing the tectonically active risks. Due to the anisotropy, heterogeneity, the existence of lamination and natural fractures, and variable in situ stress conditions in the reservoir, hydraulic fracturing results are often poorly predictable because of the multi-scale, multi-physics processes that operate in the target rock mass. In the last decade, a significant amount of effort has been spent to improve the understanding of damage evolution, fracturing, and treatment design. Moreover, recent innovations in different frac-fluids have also added significant benefits in enhancing well productivity and proppant transports.

This Special Issue will provide an opportunity for researchers to share their original research and review articles based on recent advancements in reservoir characterization, geomechanics, hydraulic fracturing, and different frac-fluids’ application in unconventional oil and gas reservoirs. Works pertaining to numerical and experimental developments related to geomechanics of multiple fracturing in reservoirs with natural fractures, the impact of coupled processes, the role of heterogeneous and anisotropic rock fabric, the dynamics of complex fracture networks, frac hits, proppant transport, and settling are of particular interest for this Special Issue. In particular, research using theoretical, computational, experimental, and/or methodological approaches in the analysis of the above-mentioned problems is welcome. Novel and practical case studies that consider extensive field applications with unconventional oil and gas exploration and development are also encouraged. Potential topics include but are not limited to the following topics:

  • Unconventional oil and gas reservoir damage process, fracture propagation characteristics, and novel fracturing method-related rock mechanics;
  • The coupled geomechanics and fluid flow with the transport of proppants;
  • The interaction of natural fractures and hydraulic fractures;
  • The enhancement of well productivity using novel completion strategies and wellbore integrity;
  • The evaluation of energies or foamed or waterless frac fluids;
  • The evaluation of unconventional oil and gas reservoirs, reservoir rock characterization, including multiscale pore structure and lamination characteristics;
  • The conventional and unconventional petroleum reservoirs characterization;
  • The application of artificial intelligence in characterizing reservoir geomechanics and hydraulic fracturing.

The manuscript may be a review paper or may be based on fundamental, applied, mathematical modeling, or field case studies. We look forward to receiving your manuscripts for this Special Issue.

Dr. Fatick Nath
Dr. Chongwei Xiao
Dr. Deepak Ganta
Dr. Zhiyang Li
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • hydraulic fracturing
  • geomechanics
  • rock fracture
  • fracture propagation
  • reservoir rock characterization
  • foamed frac-fluid
  • proppant transport
  • rock mechanics
  • wellbore stability
  • wellbore integrity
  • frac hits
  • refracturing
  • foamed fracturing
  • natural fracture characterization
  • complex fracture network
  • stress shadow
  • net pressure
  • stress rotation
  • poroelasticity
  • hydraulic fracture containment

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 3352 KiB  
Article
Emergency Pump-Rate Regulation to Mitigate Water-Hammer Effect—An Integrated Data-Driven Strategy and Case Studies
by Lei Hou, Peibin Gong, Hai Sun, Lei Zhang, Jianhua Ren and Yiyan Cheng
Energies 2024, 17(5), 1157; https://doi.org/10.3390/en17051157 - 29 Feb 2024
Viewed by 532
Abstract
Pump-rate regulation is frequently used during hydraulic fracturing operations in order to maintain the pressure within a safe range. An emergency pump-rate reduction or pump shutdown is usually applied under the condition of sand screen-out when advancing hydraulic fractures are blocked by injected [...] Read more.
Pump-rate regulation is frequently used during hydraulic fracturing operations in order to maintain the pressure within a safe range. An emergency pump-rate reduction or pump shutdown is usually applied under the condition of sand screen-out when advancing hydraulic fractures are blocked by injected proppant and develop wellhead overpressure. The drastic regulation of the pump rate induces water-hammer effects—hydraulic shocks—on the wellbore due to the impulsive pressure. This wellbore shock damages the well integrity and then increases the risk of material leakage into water resources or the atmosphere, depending on the magnitude of the impulsive pressure. Therefore, appropriate emergency pump-rate regulation can both secure the fracturing operation and enhance well-completion integrity for environmental requirements—a rare mutual benefit to both sides of the argument. Previous studies have revealed the tube vibration, severe stress concentration, and sand production induced by water-hammer effects in high-pressure wells during oil/gas production. However, the water-hammer effect, the induced impulsive pressures, and the mitigation measures are rarely reported for hydraulic fracturing injections. In this study, we present a data-driven workflow integrating real-time monitoring and regulation strategies, which is applied in four field cases under the emergency operation condition (screen-out or near screen-out). A stepwise pump-rate regulation strategy was deployed in the first three cases. The corresponding maximum impulsive pressure fell in the range of 3.7~7.4 MPa. Furthermore, a sand screen-out case, using a more radical regulation strategy, induced an impulsive pressure 2 or 3 times higher (~14.7 MPa) than the other three cases. Compared with the traditional method of sharp pump-rate regulation in fields, stepwise pump-rate regulation is recommended to constrain the water-hammer effect based on the evolution of impulsive pressures, which can be an essential operational strategy to secure hydraulic fracturing and well integrity, especially for fracturing geologically unstable formations (for instance, formations near faults). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Hydraulic Fracturing and Reservoir Characterization)
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23 pages, 8385 KiB  
Article
Influencing Factors Analysis and Optimization of Hydraulic Fracturing in Multi-Layered and Thin Tight Sandstone Gas Reservoir
by Hao Zhang, Yuhu Bai, Maojun Fang and Fankun Meng
Energies 2023, 16(23), 7797; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16237797 - 27 Nov 2023
Viewed by 707
Abstract
With the deepening of exploration and development of tight sandstone gas reservoirs, the remaining recoverable reservoirs gradually become thinner with the vertical stratigraphic structure. The geomechanical properties become complex, and development based on conventional hydraulic fracturing methods often leads to serious problems, such [...] Read more.
With the deepening of exploration and development of tight sandstone gas reservoirs, the remaining recoverable reservoirs gradually become thinner with the vertical stratigraphic structure. The geomechanical properties become complex, and development based on conventional hydraulic fracturing methods often leads to serious problems, such as difficult control of fracture height, penetrating interlayers, too short fracture length, and inadequate proppant filling. In view of the above problems, we conducted a numerical investigation on a hydraulic fracturing scheme in a multi-layered and thin tight sandstone gas reservoir. According to the dataset from wells in a real gas reservoir in China’s Ordos Basin, the relevant geomechanical characteristics of the gas layers, together with the interlayers in the main production interval, were obtained, based on which, a fine numerical model was developed. By using the PL3D fracture propagation algorithm, a 3D hydraulic fracture propagation model was produced, and then using microseismic monitoring and production data matching, a high-precision hydraulic fracture model of the multi-layered and thin tight sandstone gas reservoir was obtained. On this basis, the influence of different geomechanical parameters and fracturing operational parameters on hydraulic fracture propagation was analyzed. Finally, an optimized hydraulic fracturing scheme that fitted the characteristics of the multi-layered and thin tight sandstone gas reservoir was proposed. Using a typical reservoir example, the optimized scheme enabled control of the fracture height in thin layers and the creation of long fractures with better proppant filling, so that the productivity of the fracture was significantly improved. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Hydraulic Fracturing and Reservoir Characterization)
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17 pages, 7779 KiB  
Article
Characterizing Complex Deformation, Damage, and Fracture in Heterogeneous Shale Using 3D-DIC
by Fatick Nath, Gabriel Aguirre and Edgardo Aguirre
Energies 2023, 16(6), 2776; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16062776 - 16 Mar 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1381
Abstract
Safe drilling and effective fracturing are constant challenges for shale formations. One of the most important influencing factors is the accurate characterization of the deformation and damage caused by inherent lamination and natural fractures. Furthermore, shale formations exhibit fine-scale heterogeneity, which conventional laboratory [...] Read more.
Safe drilling and effective fracturing are constant challenges for shale formations. One of the most important influencing factors is the accurate characterization of the deformation and damage caused by inherent lamination and natural fractures. Furthermore, shale formations exhibit fine-scale heterogeneity, which conventional laboratory methods (linear variable differential transformer (LVDT), strain gauges, etc.) cannot distinguish. To overcome these constraints, this research aims to investigate the damage and deformation characteristics of shale samples using three-dimensional digital image correlation (3D-DIC). Under uniaxial and diametrical compression, samples of Wolfcamp, Mancos, and Eagle Ford shale with distinct lamination and natural fractures are evaluated. The 3D-DIC system is utilized for image processing, visualization, and analysis of the shale damage process under varying loads. DIC made quantitative full-field strain maps with load (tension, compression, and shear), showing all the damage process steps and strain localization zones (SLZs). DIC maps are used to quantify damage variables in order to investigate sample damage. Damage variables are used to categorize the damage evolution process of shale specimens into four stages: initial damage, linear elastic, elastic–plastic, and plastic damage. Characterizing shale damage evolution with a strain localization line is more effective because there is more damage there than in the whole sample. Damage variables based on major strain and its standard deviation from the DIC strain map for all tested shale samples follow a similar trend, though diametrical compression variables are greater than uniaxial compression. In both uniaxial and diametrical compression, the Wolfcamp shale was reported to have the highest damage variable, which was measured at 0.37, while the Eagle Ford shale was reported to have the lowest damage variable. This image-based technique is more effective not only for understanding the laminated and naturally fractured rocks but also for predicting the hydraulic fractures that will occur during the stimulation process. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Hydraulic Fracturing and Reservoir Characterization)
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