Integrated Geology Sweet Spot and Microseismic Monitor to Optimise Reservoir Stimulation - A Case for Shale Gas, China

Abstract

Shale play, as one kind of non-conventional natural gas resource, has become the focus of domestic and overseas research in recent years. shale is pertained to be a reservoir with an ultralow porosity and permeability, its occurrence mode, accumulation pattern of natural gas, as well as development model are remarkably different conventional oil gas reservoirs, its development must be implemented by some special technique, e.g. horizontal drilling, drilling geologic steering, hydraulic fracturing, microseismic monitor, etc. Research shows, shale gas production depends on two factors, one is geological sweet spot factor, e.g. Total organic carbon, brittleness, core fluid pressure, micro-fractures, high quality shale thickness etc., the other is engineer technique factors, e.g. horizontal drilling, drilling geologic steering, hydraulic fracturing, microseismic monitor, fracturing schemes, etc. Single factor, sweet spots or engineering technique factor often not guarantee shale gas highly production, only when the most optimal combination of both, can achieve shale gas production maximization. How to integrate sweet spots and engineering technique to guide shale gas exploration and development? This is a serious question. This question involves to many fields, including geology and engineer sweet spots, horizontal well location deployment, drilling geologic steering, pre-fracturing warning and design, hydraulic fracturing design real-time adjustment, microseismic monitoring, etc., sweet spots results runs through the entire shale exploration and development. In this article, we will pay more attention to demonstrate that how to adjust the fracturing scheme and optimize the reservoir stimulation in real time by integrated geological sweet Spot and microseismic monitor.