Sensitivity Analysis of Hydraulic Fractures for Well Stimulation in Shale Gas Reservoirs

Resumo

Unconventional reservoirs are formations incapable of producing significantly and economically
without the use of massive stimulations, due to low porosity and permeability values. Despite these restrictions,
the unconventional resources were responsible for the increase in the volume of gas production in the US, mainly
with Shale Gas. Among the forms of stimulation of oil wells, hydraulic fracturing is the most used. This technique
consists of injecting a pressurized fluid into the formation until the rock breaks. In this context, the proposed article
aims to evaluate a Shale Gas reservoir with a horizontal well and multiple transverse fractures, where the main
geometric parameters – length, fracture height and spacing between fractures - were combined with different
values to obtain the productivity of these configurations. Furthermore, with the same reservoir properties and
fracture geometric parameters, the permeability was studied for 3 different values, to compare the influence of
permeability on production. The purpose of this study is to, in the future, develop a computational tool capable of
predicting the ideal dimension and spacing of fractures that maximize the recovery factor of Shale Gas reservoirs.
For now, the simulations aim to evaluate the fracture parameters that most influence productivity, through a
correlation matrix.