COBEM99

S4 Ciências e Engenharia do Petróleo

Title:

HYDRAULIC FRACTURING PHYSICAL SIMULATION: AN EXPERIENCE

Summary :

HYDRAULIC FRACTURING HAS BECOME ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT STIMULATION TECHNIQUES SINCE ITS FIRST TREATMENT BACK IN 1947. CONSIDERING THAT ABOUT 40% OF THE WELLS DRILLED AROUND THE WORLD ARE HYDRAULICALLY FRACTURED, A GREAT DEAL OF ATTENTION HAS BEEN GIVEN TO THE IMPROVEMENT AND COST-EFFECTIVENESS OF SUCH TREATMENTS. DUE TO THE DIFFICULTIES ASSOCIATED WITH THE PREDICTION OF FRACTURE ORIENTATION AND GEOMETRY, MATHEMATICAL SIMULATION OF THE PROCESS HAS BEEN PERFORMED BY VARIOUS RESEARCHERS, AND RESULTS HAVE BEEN COMPARED TO FIELD OBSERVATIONS BY INDIRECT METHODS. THE LIMITATIONS OF MATHEMATICAL MODELING ASSOCIATED WITH THE DIFFICULTIES OF DIRECT MEASUREMENTS OF FRACTURE GEOMETRICAL PARAMETERS HAS MOTIVATED THE DEVELOPMENT OF VARIOUS HYDRAULIC FRACTURING APPARATUSES, IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND AND CONTROL THE PHYSICAL PROCESS. DUE TO THE REMARKABLE CONTRIBUTION OF VARIOUS RESEARCHERS IN THIS AREA, THE MAIN OBJECTIVE OF THIS ARTICLE IS TO PRESENT THE STATE-OF-THE-ART OF THE SUBJECT AND TO REPORT A EXPERIENCE OF DESIGNING A HYDRAULIC FRACTURING APPARATUS AND CONDUCTING EXPERIMENTS USING THE SYSTEM. THE SYSTEM BASICALLY CONSISTS OF A POLYAXIAL FRAME FOR THE APPLICATION OF THE IN SITU STRESS STATE IN (0.1X0.1X0.1)M3 GYPSUM SAMPLES, AND A VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTATION SYSTEM TO MONITOR PRESSURE SIGNALS DURING THE PROPAGATION AND CLOSURE OF THE FRACTURE THAT WAS INITIATED BY FRACTURING FLUID INJECTION. TYPICAL CURVES (FLUID INJECTION PRESSURE VERSUS TIME) OBTAINED IN FIELD TREATMENTS HAVE BEEN OBSERVED IN THE LABORATORY AND PENNY-SHAPED FRACTURES HAVE BEEN GENERATED DURING THE EXPERIMENTS. KEYWORDS: HYDRAULIC FRACTURING, PETROLEUM, LABORATORY, POLYAXIAL FRAME, REDUCED MODELS, ROCK, RESERVOIR.

Author :

Fernandes, Paulo Dore
Leite, Vanessa Caldas
Ribeiro, Paulo Roberto
Sousa, José Luíz Antunes

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