Hydraulic Fracturing Design and Optimization for Shale Oil Reservoir

Shale oil reservoir, one of the unconventional-type reservoirs, is fast gaining attention worldwide. The reservoir has very low permeability but may produce liquid hydrocarbons and hydraulic fracturing is the completion technique usually applied. It is challenging to study hydraulic fracturing for shale oil reservoirs due to variations in reservoir and fluid properties. There is no general treatment to be employed. Hence, fracturing treatment is unique and exclusive where proper analysis is required for successful stimulation. This 28-week project involves the 2-dimensional Perkins-Kern-Nordgren, PKN and Geertsma-de Klerk, GDK hydraulic fracturing models to obtain fracture geometry based on reservoir rock and fluid properties, and fracturing treatment data, while the Unified Fracture Design, UFD is used to calculate dimensionless productivity index, proppant number, dimensionless fracture conductivity, and optimized fracture geometry. The ultimate goal of this project is to develop a workflow based on the aforementioned models in Microsoft Excel that involves two parts: optimization study and design study. Identification of hydraulic fracturing parameters allows sensitivity studies to be performed for shale oil reservoir. Hypothetical cases have been designed. It is found that variations in parameters time, fracture height, injection rate, proppant pack permeability and reservoir permeability influence the optimization and parameters proppant mass, drainage area side length, proppant specific gravity, proppant porosity, plane strain modulus, viscosity and fracture height affects the design of hydraulic fracturing for shale oil reservoir, seen through illustrations of the results in graphs and tables. Thus, it is crucial to identify accurate and actual parameters to properly estimate fracture geometry or determine required treatment design for optimization. The success of this project will heighten the knowledge and contribute to further research development on hydraulic fracturing design and optimization for shale oil reservoirs.