Index

Enhanced Microseimic Analysis Hydraulic Fracturing

ASC (Itasca's UK office) has implemented advanced post-processing and reporting tools to yield a greater understanding of hydraulic fracturing. Monitoring petroleum reservoir development using passive seismics is a technology that provides feedback to engineers and project stakeholders. Microseismic (MS) monitoring provides crucial information to map the position, growth and effectiveness of hydrofracture stimulation to assess completion objectives, map extraction and injection paths, treatment history and fluid migration. MS source characteristics and clustering is used to assess connected zones, identify mobilized structures, and gain information on fracture orientation, spacing, persistence and damage accumulation.

Microseismic locations from hydrofracturing in a vertical treatment well.

Relative location techniques provide a means to increase location efficiency and thus provide greater information on the fracture network. Sophisticated methods and analysis developed during research and innovative techniques at the cutting-edge of commercial microseismic applications are being developed. Using the continuous microseismic record for investigating the fracture network growth and mechanics of hydrofracture data (through investigating the amplitude, frequency and energy characteristics) is a novel approach pioneered by ASC.