<p> Natural gas and oil exploration and production from shale formations have gained a great momentum in many regions in the past five years. Producing hydrocarbons from shale is challenging because of low productivity of wells. Optimal design of transverse fractures is a key to achieving successful well completion and field economics. The minimum fracture spacing and the fracture propagation trajectory are the determinant for the successful transverse fracture optimization. Various states of anisotropic stress have been applied to the simulated models with assigning criteria for fracture initiation and propagation. One of the factors that need to be addressed is the trajectory of a fracture in the presence of varying stress fields. The injection of treatment fluid in the initial crack exerts pressure from inside and the stress field around the fracture tip controls fracture extension direction. The new analytical model presented in this paper is used to quickly predict hydraulic fracture propagation trajectory based on completion situation. The fracture geometry obtained by this model is a reliable resource for designing the multi-stage hydraulic fracture spacing in shale gas formation and evaluating hydraulic fracturing horizontal well completion. Result of the analytical method has been verified by a Finite Element Method for a typical fracturing condition in a shale gas formation.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:10002470 |
| Date | 28 January 2016 |
| Creators | Li, Jia |
| Publisher | University of Louisiana at Lafayette |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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