Hydraulic-fracturing controlled dynamics of microseismic clouds

SPE 140468-PP An Alternative Interpretation of Microseismic Events during Hydraulic Fracturing

It is common practice in industry to monitor hydraulic fracturing jobs by picking major, micro-earthquake events in seismograms whose source locations form a spatial pattern used for interpreting induced fractures. Surprisingly, controversy still surrounds the interpretation of these scattered, discrete events. Many authors conclude that hydraulic fractures are generated by shear failure events...

Estimating geomechanical parameters from microseismic plane focal mechanisms recorded during multistage hydraulic fracturing

We extend a full-waveform modeling method to invert source focal-plane mechanisms for microseismic data recorded with dual-borehole seismic arrays. Combining inverted focal-plane mechanisms with geomechanics knowledge, we map the pore pressure distribution in the reservoir. Determining focal mechanisms for microseismic events is challenging due to poor geometry coverage. We use the P-wave polar...

Hydraulic and Pneumatic Fracturing

Industry Dynamics with Social Learning: Evidence from Hydraulic Fracturing

I model the interaction between dynamic decision making and social learning about new technologies in driving industry takeoff and productivity growth. Learning about the use of new technologies is an important factor in economic growth, but I demonstrate that anticipated social learning can lead to a free-riding dynamic in scenarios with high uncertainty. I consider the empirical setting of hy...

Energy Analysis of Hydraulic Fracturing

In this paper, numerical simulations of circular boreholes under internal hydraulic pressure are carried out to investigate the energy transferred to the surrounding rock and the breakdown pressure. The simulations are conducted by using a micromechanical continuum damage model proposed by Golshani et al. (2006). The simulation results suggest that the borehole breakdown pressure and the energy...