- Five Things You Didn’t Want to Know about Hydraulic Fractures
- M.C. Vincent
- Book Title / Journal: Effective and Sustainable Hydraulic Fracturing - Chapter 4
- Year: 2013
- Mining
- Keywords: Frac optimization ; laminated reservoirs ; complexity
- Description
- It is common to envision and design hydraulic fractures as if they were simple, planar features that are relatively consistent in width and durable in their flow capacity. Production forecasting is frequently based on a simplified description of the reservoir as a homogene‐
ous single productive layer. In rare instances the pay intervals may be simulated with as many as a dozen layered strata, but even the most meticulous reservoir engineer may mis‐
takenly assign each layer a highly conductive, durable connection with the wellbore. When
analyzing the resulting production data, similar assumptions are made, which can errone‐
ously reinforce these misconceptions.
This paper examines five limitations of hydraulic fractures and interpretation techniques, and describes the increases in well productivity that can be achieved when efforts are made to address and compensate for these deficiencies.
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