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

加拿大常规石油和天然气资源的迅速减少刺激了其非常规资源的发展。通过水平钻井和多级水力压裂，这种开发成为可能。在过去的十年中，水力压裂作业有所增加。因此，优化这些作业并将其潜在的环境影响降至最低是很重要的。最近，使用人工智能(AI)来解决与压裂优化排液数据分析相关的挑战正受到人们的关注。与现有方法相比，人工智能技术的一个关键优势是，它可以处理更大量的噪声数据，而不一定需要事先假设流体流动的物理学。因此，它们可以处理不完整的输入数据，这通常是回流数据分析中的一个挑战。因此，该项目的目标是优化加拿大致密油藏的压裂作业。它将使用阿尔伯塔大学团队将开发的先进人工智能技术来分析地质系统有限公司将提供的大型完井、压裂和排液数据集。由此产生的人工智能软件将通过1)使用最佳压裂和完井设计最大化压裂作业的效率和利润，2)最大限度地减少新鲜水消耗和减少压裂作业对环境的影响，3)防止失控地产生无效裂缝和可能的地下水污染，4)评估与压裂液污染地下水有关的公共健康和环境风险，以及5)改进政府机构的知识数据库，以更新加拿大的压裂相关法规。

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.