The Role and Impact of Microseismic Monitoring in Hydraulic Fracture Stimulation

Abstract

Hydraulic fracture stimulation has been key to the successful development of unconventional resources in North America. The experience gained there is now being applied in the development of unconventional resources around the world, where there can be many similarities to those in North America but each has a unique geology, stress regime and own set of challenges. The interaction of hydraulically induced fractures with the complex reservoir and overburden, which often contain fine layering and natural fractures, is not always well understood. To improve this understanding a range of different technologies may be applied. Microseismic monitoring of hydraulic stimulation plays a leading role in the measurement and subsequent interpretation of hydraulically induced fracture systems. The basic output of microseismic monitoring provides azimuth, dimension and stimulated rock volume estimates of the hydraulically induced fracture system. Recent advances in technology including multi-well monitoring, surface monitoring, processing techniques, and multidiscipline integration are enabling microseismic monitoring to provide greater insight into the processes and results of hydraulic fracture stimulation. Real time capabilities open a host of interpretation possibilities allowing for modification of the hydraulic fracture simulation plan. Microseismic interpretation must be coupled to data quality, ensuring measurable confidence in results. The failure mechanism of the rock can be revealed through moment tensor inversion enhancing the understanding of hydraulic fracture interaction with the reservoir. New insights into optimizing field development can be achieved using integrated interpretation workflows merging seismic, reservoir engineering, geomechanics, and microseismic. This presentation illustrates different aspects of the microseismic workflow ranging from acquisition to processing to interpretation with examples highlighting the impact microseismic measurements have on building an understanding of the reservoir.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90217 © 2015 International Conference & Exhibition, Melbourne, Australia, September 13-16, 2015