Description
This class focuses on two important aspects of hydraulic
fracturing; understanding the created fracture geometry and
evaluating the “effectiveness” of the stimulation. It is essential to understand both fracture growth and fracture performance and too many times we de-couple these two issues, resulting in an inability to significantly improve stimulation treatments.

Recent advances in hydraulic fracture mapping technologies
have provided important insights into the growth of hydraulic
fractures that were previously not possible and we continue
to improve our “tool box” of analytical and numerical models
to evaluate hydraulic fracture performance. Properly coupling
facture mapping technologies with our fracture performance
models can provide a much better understanding of hydraulic
fracture performance.

The class is divided into two 1-day sessions. The sessions are relatively independent and students can attend only one of the two days if they would like to focus on a specific topic. The first day focuses on “indirect” methods of evaluating the geometry and performance of hydraulic fractures. This includes fracture modeling, analytical rate transient analyses, numerical reservoir simulation, and pressure transient testing. The basic theory, strengths, weakness, and example applications of these methods will be discussed in the class.

These indirect methods provide our only means, so far, to estimate the “effectiveness” of hydraulic fracture treatments. Interpreting the results properly and coupling the results with direct measurements of hydraulic fracture growth will be detailed at the end of day one. The second day of the class will focus on direct measurements of hydraulic fracture geometry using microseismic and tiltmeter mapping. Day two will include an overview of the theory, application, and field operations of microseismic and tiltmeter technology. In addition, processing and analysis of microseismic and tiltmeter data will be detailed and the strengths and weakness of each technology will be outlined. Numerous field examples and case histories will be used to illustrate the application of microseismic and tiltmeter technology, data processing and analysis issues, and the integration of fracture mapping measurements with fracture models and well performance software.