Horizontal Wellbore Fracture Cluster Staging for Stable Extraction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing fracturing methods in unconventional formations often result in either trapped resources due to insufficient fracturing or underproduction due to excessive fracturing, necessitating an optimal balance to enhance resource extraction.
Innovation Solution
A method involving multiple stage fracturing within a horizontal wellbore section, with each stage comprising fracture clusters spaced apart, to optimize fracturing design and enhance resource extraction.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If fracturing is increased to extract more subterranean resources, then resource extraction improves, but fracture pathways may collapse resulting in underproduction
Solution Approach 1:
The wellbore is divided into multiple discrete fracturing stages, with each stage containing multiple fracture clusters spaced at specific intervals. This segmentation allows controlled fracturing at different locations along the horizontal section, creating numerous smaller fracture pathways rather than fewer large ones, thereby maintaining pathway stability while enhancing resource extraction
Solution Approach 2:
Different fracturing parameters are applied at different locations along the wellbore. Each fracturing stage targets specific intervals with customized fracture cluster spacing and density, optimizing the fracturing intensity locally to match formation characteristics and prevent pathway collapse while maximizing resource recovery
2Reliability
If fracturing is insufficient to maintain pathway stability, then fracture pathways remain intact, but resources remain trapped and production is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
Fracturing operations are performed in a predetermined sequence through multiple stages, with each stage preparing the formation for subsequent stages. This preliminary action creates initial fracture pathways and modifies formation stress fields before additional fracturing occurs, ensuring that subsequent fractures build upon rather than collapse previous pathways
Solution Approach 2:
The fracturing process is executed in periodic stages rather than as a single continuous operation. Each stage introduces new fracture clusters at optimized intervals, allowing the formation to respond to and stabilize around previous fractures before the next fracturing event, thereby maintaining pathway integrity while progressively enhancing permeability
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enhances resource extraction by balancing fracturing intensity, ensuring effective creation and maintenance of fracture pathways for efficient resource recovery.
Implementation Method 1
a first fracturing stage within a portion of the horizontal section of the wellbore, where the first fracturing stage includes a first plurality of fracture clusters
Data Source
AI summary
A method for fracturing a horizontal section of a wellbore may include executing, at a first time, a first fracturing stage within a portion of the horizontal section of the wellbore, where the first fracturing stage includes first fracture clusters at first locations along the portion of the horizontal section of the wellbore, and where the first locations are spaced apart from each other by a distance. The method may also include executing, at a second time following the first time, a second fracturing stage within the portion of the horizontal section of the wellbore, where the second fracturing stage includes second fracture clusters at second locations along the portion of the horizontal section of the wellbore, where the second locations are spaced apart from each other by the distance, and where at least some of the second locations are positioned between the first locations.