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Title: Hydro-frac monitoring using ground time-domain electromagnetics: Hydro-frac monitoring using ground time-domain EM

Journal Article · · Geophysical Prospecting
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [3]
  1. Chevron Energy Technology Company, San Ramon, CA (United States)
  2. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  3. Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC (Canada)
+ Show Author Affiliations

& Engineers. As motivation for considering new electromagnetic techniques for hydraulic fracture monitoring, we develop a simple financial model for the net present value offered by geophysical characterization to reduce the error in stimulated reservoir volume calculations. Additionally, this model shows that even a 5% improvement in stimulated reservoir volume for a 1 billion barrel (bbl) field results in over 1 billion U.S. dollars (US$) in net present value over 24 years for US$100/bbl. oil and US$0.5 billion for US$50/bbl. oil. The application of conductivity upscaling, often used in electromagnetic modeling to reduce mesh size and thus simulation runtimes, is shown to be inaccurate for the high electrical contrasts needed to represent steel-cased wells in the earth. Fine-scale finite-difference modeling with 12.22-mm cells to capture the steel casing and fractures shows that the steel casing provides a direct current pathway to a created fracture that significantly enhances the response compared with neglecting the steel casing. We consider conductively enhanced proppant, such as coke-breeze-coated sand, and a highly saline brine solution to produce electrically conductive fractures. For a relatively small frac job at a depth of 3 km, involving 5,000 bbl. of slurry and a source midpoint to receiver separation of 50 m, the models show that the conductively enhanced proppant produces a 15% increase in the electric field strength (in-line with the transmitter) in a 10-Ωm background. In a 100-Ωm background, the response due to the proppant increases to 213%. Replacing the conductive proppant by brine with a concentration of 100,000-ppm NaCl, the field strength is increased by 23% in the 100-Ωm background and by 2.3% in the 10-Ωm background. Finally, all but the 100,000-ppm NaCl brine in a 10-Ωm background produce calculated fracture-induced electric field increases that are significantly above 2%, a value that has been demonstrated to be observable in field measurements. © 2015 European Association of Geoscientists

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1526490
Journal Information:
Geophysical Prospecting, Vol. 63, Issue 6; ISSN 0016-8025
Publisher:
WileyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 22 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (13)

An accelerated time domain finite difference simulation scheme for three-dimensional transient electromagnetic modeling using geometric multigrid concepts: MULTIGRID FDTD SCHEME journal June 2006
Numerical upscaling of electrical conductivity: A problem specific approach to generate coarse-scale models conference August 2014
Cross‐borehole electrical resistivity tomography conference March 2012
A parallel finite‐difference approach for 3D transient electromagnetic modeling with galvanic sources journal September 2004
Transient-electromagnetic finite-difference time-domain earth modeling over steel infrastructure journal March 2015
Hydro-frac Monitoring Using Ground Time-domain EM conference January 2014
The use of Vertical line Sources in Electrical Prospecting for Hydrocarbon* journal February 1985
Modelling electrical conductivity for earth media with macroscopic fluid-filled fractures journal December 2012
Sensitivity analysis for the appraisal of hydrofractures in horizontal wells with borehole resistivity measurements journal July 2013
A nonconventional geoelectric method using EM field generated by steel‐casing excitation conference March 2012
1D subsurface electromagnetic fields excited by energized steel casing journal July 2009
Proppant Transport conference April 2013
Electromagnetic Characterization of Hydraulic Fracture Shape and Permeability conference June 2015

Cited By (2)

Energy flow in terrestrial controlled-source electromagnetic geophysics journal September 2019
Direct current resistivity with steel-cased wells journal June 2019

Figures / Tables (20)

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Table 3(p. 36)table Table 3
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Figure 17(p. 40)figure Figure 17

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