Description
E&P companies in the Permian Basin typically implement basin-wide development strategies that involve cookie-cutter type methods that use multi-well pads with identical geometric stage and cluster spacing. Such development strategies however fail to recognize and account for subsurface stress heterogeneity, and thus assume similar geomechanical properties that are homogeneous and isotropic.
Minimum horizontal stress or Sh (min) is the leading parameter that controls hydraulic fracture stimulation, but is next to impossible to measure quantitatively, especially far field and in 3D space. A method is presented that calculates Sh (min) by substitution of AVO seismic inversion volumes directly into the Eaton stress equation with triaxial core values. This provides an anisotropic measurement of in-situ stress variability for fracture geometry modeling, and for engineered treatment design to prevent interwell fracture communication.