Synthetic Seismic Study for Hydraulic Fracture in Shale-Gas Reservoirs

Abstract:

Many studies have been done regarding performance of hydraulically fractured horizontal wells in the Bakken Shale Play (Wiley et. al., 2004; Mille et. al., 2008; Tabatabaei et. al., 2009). It’s of great interest that whether the invaded brine causes the gas shale layer to behave differently in seismic profile due to potentially important application on reservoir monitoring and management for gas shale reservoirs. Because gas shale formations are generally much thinner than their adjacent layers (usually less than 100 meters), it’s usually difficult to pick the reflection wave response of gas shale layer from in-situ seismic profile. Therefore, we have designed a workflow to investigate the effects of hydraulic fracture in gas shale reservoir by using synthetic seismic survey on simplified subsurface model. The simplified model mainly consists of several horizontally homogeneous layers of sand and shale, whereas the hydraulic fracture occurs in the middle thin gas shale formation and causes brine invasion in part of it. The goal of the synthetic seismic investigation is to see how the response of the reflection wave from this layer behaves differently due to the hydraulic fracture. Due to the thickness and complex nature of shale reservoir, the greatest challenge would be to pick the seismic response of this formation from the background noise and to study the range of thickness and the depth of burial for this layer to be seismically detectable for the purpose of hydraulic fracture study. Seismic investigation is rarely used in the reservoir monitoring of gas shale reservoir due to seismic resolution limit. Thus, this study will help to explore potential seismic applications for gas shale reservoirs and improve understanding of seismic response of hydraulic fracture on unconventional reservoirs.