Natural fractures at depth in shale reservoirs: new insights from the southern Sichuan Basin marine shales

Natural fractures are pervasive in southern Sichuan Basin marine shales, China, and provide a desired opportunity to understand subsurface fracture network in shale reservoirs. Based on cores and electrical imaging logs from vertical and horizontal petroleum wells in southern Sichuan Basin, four types of natural fractures are identified in terms of orientation, size, filling properties, and spatial distribution. The uncemented bed-parallel shear fracture is developed at or in the vicinity of the mechanical interfaces and inclined to present in shale layers with dip angles greater than 12°. The cemented bed-parallel fracture is characterized with crack-seal texture marked by multiple bands of fibrous cement, and its intensity decreases upwards and shows a positive relation with the TOC values. The uncemented bed-oblique fracture is barely developed, and bears limited open space. The cemented bed-oblique/perpendicular fracture is the most developed fracture type and distributed on a regional scale with a pattern of two systematic sets. The results imply that these shale fractures could be formed sequentially by local and regional tectonic deformation, and by abnormally high-pressure. Most natural fractures cannot contribute to reservoir storage or efficiently enhance its permeability yet can act as planes of weakness and be potentially reactivated during hydraulic fracture treatments.