Analysis of flowback data using artificial intelligence for regulating and optimizing hydraulic fracturing operations

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Canada's rapidly declining conventional oil and gas resources has been a stimulus for the development of itsunconventional resources. This development has become possible using horizontal drilling and multi-stage hydraulic fracturing. There has been an increase in hydraulic fracturing operations during the last decade. Hence, it is important to optimize these operations and minimize their potential environmental impacts. Recently, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to address the challenges associated with flowback data analysis for fracturing optimization is gaining attention. One key advantage of the AI technique over existing methods is that it can handle larger quantities of noisy data without necessarily requiring a prior assumption of the physics of fluid flow. Therefore, they can handle incomplete input data, which is often a challenge in flowback data analysis. Therefore, this project's objective is to optimize fracturing operations in Canadian tight reservoirs. It will use advanced AI techniques which will be developed by the University of Alberta team to analyze the large completion, fracturing and flowback data sets that will be provided by geoLOGIC Systems Ltd. The resulting AI software will benefit the industry and government regulators by 1) maximizing efficiency and profitability of fracturing operations using optimal fracturing and completion designs, 2) minimizing fresh water consumption and reducing environmental impacts of fracturing operations, 3) preventing uncontrolled creation of inefficient fractures and possible groundwater contamination, 4) assessing public health and environmental risks related to groundwater contamination by fracturing fluid, and 5) improving the knowledge database for government agencies to update fracturing-related regulations in Canada.