Geomechanical Aspects of Unconventional Reservoir Stimulation

Thursday, August 2, 2012 at 10:00am

Snee Hall, 2146

Cornell Energy Institute Seminar

Presented by:
Ahmad Ghassemi
Associate Professor and Director of PE Rock Mechanics Laboratory
George & Joan Voneiff Development Professor in Unconventional Resources
Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering
Texas A&M University

Unconventional geothermal and natural gas reservoirs tend to have heterogeneous geomechanical characteristics that pose challenges to economic energy production. Development of these low permeability reservoirs requires designing a fracture network through stimulation by hydraulic fracturing. Stimulation results often are poorly predictable in part, because of the complex fracture geometry that arises from intact rock and rock mass fabric and textural characteristic and in-situ stress. Hydraulic fracturing of gas shale and geothermal reservoirs will be discussed with reference to rock failure, fracture propagation, permeability change, and induced seismicity resulting from injection induced stresses and pore pressures. Numerical modeling strategies will be presented, and modeling results will be discussed to illustrate important controls on stimulated rock volume and its dynamics.