Description
65 years have passed since the first hydraulic fracture treatment in the Hugoton Field; however, the now mature hydraulic fracturing technology for conventional plays has proven to be insufficient when applied to the extremely low permeability, fractured formations common to the unconventional plays under development today. To address this, the industry has turned to newer technologies, like microseismic monitoring, and to common practices like data mining, but still many of the completion designs for unconventional developments are generated in a trial-and-error fashion. Because of this, as well as the lack of predictive tools, empirical ‘wisdom’ has emerged such as the concepts of ‘complexity’, ‘brittleness’, ‘fracability’, and ‘Stimulated Reservoir Volume’ (SRV).
The presentation will focus on the role of geomechanics in understanding the fundamental physics behind the stimulation of fractured, unconventional plays. Moreover, the geomechanical foundations, or lack thereof, for the common, empirical ‘wisdom’ for the completion of unconventional plays will be reviewed, including the geomechanical significance of microseismicity. The presentation will also focus on the application of the new numerical techniques that overcome the limitations of pseudo-3D models for stimulation design in unconventional plays.
Dr. Sanchez-Nagel is currently General Manager and Principal Engineer with Itasca Houston. She has more than 20 years of oil and gas industry experience in geomechanics for near-wellbore and reservoir geomechanics applications. She started her career at Intevep, the technology center of PDVSA, in Venezuela and worked there for 15 years. She then became president of Global GeoSolutions, an independent geomechanics consulting company in Latin America. Sanchez-Nagel later worked for GMI for 2 years, before coming to Itasca Houston as General Manager in 2007. Dr. Sanchez-Nagel has worked on many geomechanical projects around the world, has presented at numerous geomechanics schools throughout North and South America, is currently on the 2013 ARMA Program Committee, and is currently serving as a 2012-2013 SPE Distinguished Lecturer.