HYDRAULIC FRACTURING

MEASUREMENT, CHARACTERIZATION AND ANALYSIS

BOTTOM LINE KEY WORDS:

Understanding the reservoir, its basic rock properties and how they affect fracturing, is a pre-
requisite for optimizing hydraulic fracturing treatments. Choosing the proper fracturing fluid, Barnett Shale
proppant, proppant load, and additives are important. Achieving and maintaining fracture
conductivity is essential. Modeling, recognizing the underlying theory and limitations, can Fracture conductivity
help operators determine how different parameters affect created fractures and guide them to Fracture fluids
treatment designs that will be more effective. Data gathered during a frac treatment provides Fracture reorientation
insights for future frac designs. Some testing techniques provide indirect evidence of what is Hydraulic fracturing
happening in the rock during a frac treatment, while other techniques such as tiltmeter or
microseismic techniques directly measure the fractures that are being created. Fracture reori- Modeling
entation, which is now receiving renewed interest, creates restimulation opportunities. Rock properties

PROBLEM ADDRESSED
For most reservoirs, effective well stimulation is required for attractive economics. This is particularly true for tight gas or
unconventional reservoirs that are increasingly the target in domestic exploration. Determining when restimulation makes
sense is also important in the vast number of existing wells/reservoirs. Hydraulic fracturing is a key stimulation technolo-
gy, but for maximum effectiveness to be achieved, one must understand the underlying theory, how to design and model
treatments, and how to analyze treatment data to determine what happened so subsequent treatments can be redesigned
to be more effective.

TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW from geological/tectonic information or observed in orient-

Fracturing Basics
A basic rock property of interest in hydraulic fracturing,
Young's Modulus, E, can be measured using static (mechan-
ical, triaxial) or dynamic (acoustic) techniques. Static tests
are more accurate and expensive. Dynamic tests can meas-
ure "shale" information and get a lot of information for the
entire zone, but there are resolution issues and "weakness-
es" such as fractures or discontinuities affecting measure-
ment. Young's Moduli measured by static and dynamic tests
can vary significantly.
A reservoir rock is under three stresses-overburden stress
that is about 1 psi/ft in most sedimentary basins, plus there
are maximum horizontal and minimum horizontal stresses.
It is critical to determine the orientation of the maximum
horizontal stress since fractures parallel it. These fractures
and the flow patterns they create influence the preferred
orientation for perforations, affects the shape of drainage
areas and well spacing, sweep efficiencies in flood projects,
and the best orientation for horizontal wells. This stress or
orientation can be measured by microfrac tests, mini-frac or
G function tests, analysis of wellbore breakouts, inferred
Based on a PTTC Rocky Mountain Region workshop, May 27,
2004 in Casper, WY
ed core.
In most petroleum applications, both the rock matrix and
the pore pressure support a portion of the applied stress.
The overburden or effective stress equals the matrix stress
plus the pore pressure. Effective stress is different in
drained and undrained rock. When load is applied instanta-
neously, rock behaves as undrained and stiff. When load is
applied slowly, rock "drains," has time to diffuse and
becomes "softer." Biot's constant, which is around 0.7 for
most reservoirs (but assumed to be 1 in most hydraulic frac-
turing calculations), adjusts for this effect when calculating
effective stress.
The Hydraulic Fracturing Process
There are generally five steps in the hydraulic fracturing
process
l Injection of a pad (gelled water, no solids) to break-
down the formation
l Injection of a slurry (gelled water with proppant) to
propagate and develop fracture
l Displacing the slurry to the formation (clear the tub-
ing/casing)
l Shut down injection, allow leakoff and closure
l Followed by a flow back period to clean up

SPEAKERS: The big questions for hydraulic fracturing are:

l Design-What goes into designing a frac treatment?
All Topics, Dr. Jennifer Miskimins, Petroleum Engineering Department,
Colorado School of Mines l Modeling-What can't modeling tell you?
533
l Analysis-How do you analyze success of your treatment
 and improve it next time?
Geological and reservoir pre-treatment data of interest
include: porosity, permeability, saturations, gas and water
contacts, mineralogy, pressure, stresses, rock moduli, tem-
perature gradients and well spacing. Pre-treatment planning
should consider potential formation damage. Treatment
parameters of interest include rates and pressures, fluid
properties, proppant types and concentrations, and addi-
tives. There needs to be an evaluation of production poten-
tial.
Dimensionless fracture conductivity is a key parameter
affecting fracturing effectiveness. It is dependent on fracture
length, type of proppant, proppant size distribution and con-
centration in the fracture, stress load on the proppant pack,
formation embedment characteristics, non-Darcy flow effects
and potential plugging from frac fluid residue. One must rec-
ognize which factors can be controlled. Long-term degrada-
tion of fracture conductivity can occur from polymers,
embedment, crushing, fines, scale and paraffin/asphaltenes.
Fracturing Fluids
l These fluids are likely the most expensive physical
component of a fracturing treatment. They can be water-
based, oil-based, acid-based or foams. Ideal properties
are:
l Adequate viscosity to suspend and transport proppants,
initiate and create fracture width, and control settling
and banking.
l Good fluid loss control since high fluid loss may reduce
frac length and may result in screenout.
l Low residue since high residue will reduce fracture con-
ductivity, degradable to avoid plugging. Generally low
residue = high cost.
l Low friction pressure since friction = cost. Delaying
cross-linking reduces friction.
l Temperature and shear stable throughout the treatment,
testing in both laboratory and field samples to evaluate
stability.
l Non-damaging to the formation (a myriad of factors).
l Easy to mix in the field. Take care to avoid fish eyes,
bacterial degradation, contamination and iron interfer-
ence. Consider using a liquid gel if good mixing is not
available. Always have a good QC program.
l Easy to recover, breaking to low viscosity by thermal
degradation or other breakers for easy removal.
l Cost effective
Modeling
Fracture modeling can use either 2D or 3D approaches. 2D
modeling assumes a constant height, predicting width and
length. Since experience indicates height growth occurs in
many reservoirs, this is a limitation of 2D modeling that
leads to overly optimistic fracture lengths and poor proppant
transport predictions. 3D modeling using finite element or
boundary integral methods can be more accurate, but more
input data is needed. 3D modeling matches both pressure
behavior and fracture geometry. In modeling, one must
understand the assumptions in the model and recognize that
the modeler has significant control of the outcome and
answers are non-unique. I.e., experience is invaluable in
modeling fracs.
Measurement and Characterization
Testing to understand and evaluate created fractures falls
into three basic categories-pre-treatment testing, indirect
testing, and direct testing.
Pre-Treatment. Step-rate tests can help determine whether
perfs are open and the degree to which tortuosity causes
high near-wellbore friction losses. Tortuosity reflects the
complex connection between the wellbore and the
fracture(s). Excess tortuosity can lead to near wellbore scree-
nouts. G-Function analysis is a technique used to describe
fracture pressure decline behavior. It is used to measure clo-
sure pressure, leak-off characteristics and can provide an in-
situ permeability measurement. When gathering data, one
must allow enough shut-down time for closure to occur. G-
Function testing is attractive because it is performed onsite
just prior to the treatment. Compared to conventional well
testing techniques, which can require very long shut-in
times in tight reservoirs, it is time effective.
Indirect Testing. Log-Log plots (log net fracturing pressure
vs. log time) provide real time indicators of what is happen-
ing with the fracture (confined height and extending, limited
extension, screenout, unwanted height growth). Specialized
pressure transient analysis techniques can measure impor-
tant parameters such as kh, effective xf, and effective
drained area.
Direct Testing. Temperature logs and radioactive tracers are
near wellbore measurements only. Tiltmeters, which can be
either surface, downhole in offsets or in the treated wellbore
itself, are not limited to the near wellbore region. Tiltmeters
measure minute deflections that result from created frac-
tures. Similarly, microseismic techniques measure the micro-
earthquakes that occur with fracturing. Tiltmeter and micro-
seismic techniques provide critical data on orientation, frac-
ture complexity and fracture length.
Fracture Conductivity
API conductivity tests (RP 61, Recommended Practices for
Evaluating Short Term Proppant Pack Conductivity) are mis-
leading, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, RP61 recom-
mends superficial velocities of 0.2 to 2.0 inches per minute
while actual velocities in fractures may exceed 2 feet per
second. Two other key reasons are non-Darcy flow effects
and multiphase flow. All these factors can cause the effec-
tive fracture half-length to be significantly less than predict-
ed.
Fracture Reorientation
Pore pressure depletion alters stress state, affecting maxi-
mum horizontal stress more than minimum. If the change in
pore pressure is more than original difference in max/min,
then the orientations will switch. Offset stress changes (i.e.,
new offset well) can reorient max/min stresses.
Reorientation of 30 to 40 degrees is typical. As the fracture
exits the perturbed region, it will return to original orienta-
tion. This reorientation effect creates restimulation opportu-
nities, as noted in the Barnett Shale below. Opportunities
likely exist in other reservoirs.
Evolution of Hydraulic Fracturing in Barnett Shale
The Barnett Shale in the Fort Worth Basin is an unconven-
tional gas play. In-place resource is very high, some 160 Bcf
per square mile, but the reservoir is tight and drainage areas
are small. Hydraulic fracturing is essential. Although initial
development began in the early 1980s, activity did not really
boom until the last few years as completion and hydraulic
fracturing techniques evolved and gas prices remained
strong. Early fracs were gelled water, beginning with 250,000
gals gelled water and 300,000 lb proppant in the early 1980s
and increasing to a million gallons gelled water with a mil-
lion lb proppant. Operators began switching to "slick water"
fracs in the late 1990s to minimize gel damage, develop
longer more complex fractures, and lower cost. Current treat-
ments may be 750,000 gal or more with low proppant loads
of only 0.1-0.5 ppg. Fracturing fluids are reused. Costs range
from $80,000 to $160,000. Operators have discovered that
refracing a few years after completion is profitable, as the
new fracs have a different orientation than original fractures
and new reservoir is accessed.

Selected SPE Paper References (accessible online through

www.spe.org)
l SPE #84306 (2003), "Realistic Assessment of Proppant
Pack Conductivity for Material Selection"
l SPE # 75359 (2001), "Diagnostic Techniques To
Understand Hydraulic Fracturing: What? Why? And
How?"
l SPE # 56600 (1999), "Estimating Pore Pressure and
Permeability in Massively Stacked Lenticular Reservoirs
Using Diagnostic Fracture-Injection Tests"

CONNECTIONS:

Dr. Jennifer Miskimins, PE

Colorado School of Mines
Petroleum Engineering Department
Golden, CO 80401
Phone: 303-384-2419
E-mail: jmiskimi@mines.edu

For information on PTTC’s Rocky Mountain Region and its activities contact:

Sandra Mark, Director, Colorado School of Mines

Department of Geology and Geological Engineering, Golden, CO 80401-1887
ph 303-273-3107, fax 303-273-3859, e-mail smark.95@alum.mines.edu

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