SBIR Phase I: Efficient Hydraulic Fracturing through Fracture Manipulation in Highly Heterogeneous Rock Formations for Enhanced Energy Production with Environmental Sustainability

这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是大大提高致密页岩储层和其他高度非均质油气生产地层中水力压裂油气威尔斯井的效率。 这种效率的提高将大大减少相同油/气生产所需的压裂水的量。 对于相同的油/气回收，这将产生减少的总体水力压裂工作，从而大大减少对环境的影响并提供改进的经济性。该创新将允许裂缝生长操纵，以允许在某些情况下切割穿过诸如床/层界面的不连续性，或者在其他情况下在界面处停止以限制裂缝高度生长。 使用新的压裂液和泵送技术的概念的商业化为每年数千亿美元的市场提供了巨大的市场机会。从这些低流体流动性地层中提高采收率对于维持向能源独立的持续发展、维持向国家提供的显著经济发展以及减少与从这些地层中采收气体相关的碳足迹至关重要。 此外，这项工作将扩大流体驱动的裂缝传播的科学理解，特别是在高度非均质材料。真正的裂缝控制技术是新颖的，并提供了一个大的步骤changes.The第一阶段的研究项目的目标是建立新的压裂液和压裂技术的关键参数的优先权，已开发的，将操纵裂缝扩展在一个理想的方式。 这将通过对水平井完井所用的水力压裂扩展进行近似建模，并通过简单的实验室试验进行验证来实现。 该研究将包括考虑储层岩石组构的瞬态流体驱动裂缝扩展的实用计算。计算将改变关键的压裂液特性，并根据计算进行实验室测试，以验证预测。 压裂液性质的变化将通过流体变化和泵送/注入方案变化来实现。 通过使用压裂流体性质与储层岩石组构协作来操纵裂缝扩展是独特的。 在某些情况下，目的是使断裂跨过薄弱面进入另一个“层”。 在其他情况下，希望使裂缝跨越和分支以产生更复杂的裂缝网络。 在其他情况下，希望通过在界面处停止并因此保持裂缝高度约束来限制裂缝延伸。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is to greatly improve the efficiency of hydraulic fracturing oil/gas wells in tight shale reservoirs and other highly heterogeneous oil/gas producing formations. Such increase in efficiency will drastically reduce the quantity of fracture water required for the same oil/gas production. This will yield reduced overall hydraulic fracturing effort for the same recovery of oil/gas, thereby much reducing the environmental impact and providing improved economics. The innovation will allow fracture growth manipulation to allow cutting across discontinuities such as bed/layer interfaces in some cases or to stop at an interface to limit fracture height growth in other cases. Commercialization of the concept using new fracturing fluids and pumping techniques offers a large market opportunity for the several hundred billion dollars annual market. Increased recovery from these low fluid mobility formations is critical for sustaining the continued move toward energy independence, for maintaining the significant economic development being provided to the Nation, and for reducing the carbon footprint associated with recovering gas from these formations. Additionally, this work will extend the scientific understanding of fluid driven fracture propagation, particularly in highly heterogeneous materials. The technology for true fracture manipulation is novel and offers the potential for a large step change.The objectives of this Phase I research project are to establish priorities for key parameters for new fracturing fluids and fracturing techniques that have been developed that would manipulate the fracture propagation in a desirable manner. This will be accomplished by approximate modeling of hydraulic fracture propagation used for horizontal well completions, and validating with simple laboratory tests. The research will include calculations in a practical manner of the transient fluid-driven fracture propagation considering the reservoir rock fabric. The calculations will vary key fracturing fluid properties, and based on the calculations laboratory tests will be conducted to validate predictions. The fracturing fluid properties change will be accomplished by fluid variation and by pumping/injection schedule variations. Manipulating the fracture propagation by using the fracturing fluid properties in collaboration with the reservoir rock fabric is unique. In some cases the intent is to cause the fracture to step across a plane of weakness to proceed into another 'layer'. In other cases it is desirable to cause the fracture to step-over and branch to create a more complex fracture network. Still in other cases, it is desirable to limit the fracture extension by stopping at an interface and thus maintaining fracture height containment.