Study of hydraulic fracturing processes in shale formations with complex geological settings

Hydraulic fracturing has been applied to extract gas from shale-gas reservoirs. Complicated geological settings,such as spatial variability of the rock mass properties, local heterogeneities, complex in situ stress field, and preexistingbedding planes and faults, could make hydraulic fracturing a challenging task. In order to effectivelyand economically recover gas from such reservoirs, it is crucial to explore how hydraulic fracturing performs insuch complex geological settings. For this purpose, numerical modelling plays an important role because suchconditions cannot be reproduced by laboratory experiments. This paper focuses on the analysis of the influenceof confining formations and pre-existing bedding planes and faults on the hydraulically-induced propagation ofa vertical fracture, which will be called injection fracture, in a shale-gas reservoir. An elastic-brittle model basedon material property degradation was implemented in a 2D finite-difference scheme and used for rock elementssubjected to tension and shear failure. A base case is considered, in which the ratio SR between the magnitudesof the horizontal and vertical stresses, the permeability kc of the confining formations, the elastic modulus Epand initial permeability kp of the bedding plane and the initial fault permeability kF are fixed at reasonablevalues. In addition, the influence of multiple bedding planes, is investigated. Changes in pore pressure andpermeability due to high pressure injection lasting 2 h were analysed. Results show that in our case during theinjection period the fracture reaches the confining formations and if the permeability of those layers issignificantly larger than that of the shale, the pore pressure at the extended fracture tip decreases and fracturepropagation becomes slower. After shut-in, the pore pressure decreases more and the fracture does notpropagate any more. For bedding planes oriented perpendicular to the maximum principal stress direction andwith the same elastic properties as the shale formation, results were found not to be influenced by theirpresence. In such a scenario, the impact of multiple bedding planes on fracture propagation is negligible. On theother hand, a bedding plane softer than the surrounding shale formation leads to a fracture propagationasymmetrical vertically with respect to the centre of the injection fracture with a more limited upward fracturepropagation. A pre-existing fault leads to a decrease in fracture propagation because of fault reactivation withshear failure. This results in a smaller increase in injection fracture permeability and a slight higher injectionpressure than that observed without the fault. Overall, results of a sensitivity analysis show that fracturepropagation is influenced by the stress ratio SR, the permeability kc of the confining formations and the initialpermeability kp of the bedding plane more than the other major parameters.Correction about funding information in Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, Volume 166, July 2018, Page 797https://doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2018.03.016