Duane H. Smith, Mark L. McKoy, and Edward J. Boyle

National Energy Technology Laboratory, Morgantown, WV 26507-0880

FRACGEN^TM generates fracture networks for highly fractured reservoirs (< 60,000 fractures) consistent with field data (e.g., outcrop data, fmi and other logs) and a geologist’s intuition. It uses four Boolean models of increasing complexity through a Monte Carlo process that samples statistical distributions for various network attributes of each fracture set as found from the data. Three models account for hierarchical relations among fracture sets, and two generate fracture swarming. Termination/intersection frequencies may be controlled implicitly or explicitly. The code also is being upgraded to allow specification of fractal properties for the fracture network. FRACGEN provides an output file that specifies length, orientation, and effective aperture for each fracture. This output file can be used by a unique reservoir engineering code, NFFLOW, to perform reservoir engineering studies for geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide. This presentation describes use of FRACGEN to describe a reservoir in the Oriskany Sandstone in West Virginia.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90059©2006 AAPG Eastern Section Meeting, Buffalo, New York