Hydraulic fracturing application in shale gas reservoir

Abstract

Hydraulic fracturing in shale gas reservoir is a newly developing field. Country like China and USA had encouraged research in developing this unconventional energy field. Shale with unique characteristics such as very low permeability, the existing of microfractures, and sensitivity to contacting fluid make it difficult to evaluate and produce. So it needs an optimum fracturing design to produce but there is absence of proper parameter analysis for hydraulic fracture geometry is captured in the literature. This study is carried out to identify the best 2-dimensional fracture propagation model of hydraulic fracturing in shale gas reservoir and to evaluate the response of models by controlling the parameters such as viscosity of fracturing fluid, injection rate and injection time. Meanwhile the study is based on all the research papers, journal and books. Software like MATLAB is used to develop the mathematical code and the parameters are analysed using the code. Besides that, 2-dimensional models are listed out through studies. Then, the best model is chose and mathematical code is developed. From the code, the effect of manipulating the parameters on the outcomes such as average width, fracture length, wellbore width and wellbore net pressure is observed and analysed. The use of 2D fracture propagation model in the hydraulic fracture geometry in shale gas reservoir is verified.