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Analysis of fracture propagation and shale gas production by intensive volume fracturing

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Abstract

This paper presents an integrated study from fracture propagation modeling to gas flow modeling and a correlation analysis to explore the key controlling factors of intensive volume fracturing. The fracture propagation model takes into account the interaction between hydraulic fracture and natural fracture by means of the displacement discontinuity method (DDM) and the Picard iterative method. The shale gas flow considers multiple transport mechanisms, and the flow in the fracture network is handled by the embedded discrete fracture model (EDFM). A series of numerical simulations are conducted to analyze the effects of the cluster number, stage spacing, stress difference coefficient, and natural fracture distribution on the stimulated fracture area, fractal dimension, and cumulative gas production, and their correlation coefficients are obtained. The results show that the most influential factors to the stimulated fracture area are the stress difference ratio, stage spacing, and natural fracture density, while those to the cumulative gas production are the stress difference ratio, natural fracture density, and cluster number. This indicates that the stress condition dominates the gas production, and employing intensive volume fracturing (by properly increasing the cluster number) is beneficial for improving the final cumulative gas production.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Energy and Mining Engineering, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, Shandong Province, 266590, China

    Qingdong Zeng, Long Bo & Xuelong Li

  2. Research Center of Multiphase Flow in Porous Media, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, Shandong Province, 266580, China

    Qingdong Zeng, Zhaoqin Huang & Jun Yao

  3. State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, 610500, China

    Qingdong Zeng

  4. College of Energy, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu, 610059, China

    Lijun Liu

  5. College of Geoscience, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, Shandong Province, 266580, China

    Jianmeng Sun

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  1. Qingdong Zeng
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  2. Long Bo
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Correspondence to Jun Yao.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 52274038, 52034010, and 42174143), the Taishan Scholars Project (No. tsqnz20221140), and the Open Fund of State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation (Southwest Petroleum University) of China (No. PLN2020-5)

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Zeng, Q., Bo, L., Liu, L. et al. Analysis of fracture propagation and shale gas production by intensive volume fracturing. Appl. Math. Mech.-Engl. Ed. 44, 1385–1408 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10483-023-3021-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10483-023-3021-6

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