Model-Based Evaluation of Methods for Maximizing Efficiency and Effectiveness of Hydraulic Fracture Stimulation of Horizontal Wells

Hydraulic fracturing enables oil and gas extraction from low-permeability reservoirs, but there remains a need to reduce the environmental footprint. Resource use, contaminant-bearing flowback water, and potential for induced seismicity are all scaled by the volume of injected fluid. Furthermore, the greenhouse gas emissions associated with each extracted unit of energy can be decreased by improving resource recovery. To minimize fluid use while maximizing recovery, a rapidly computing model is developed and validated to enable the thousands of simulations needed to identify opportunities for optimization. Lower pumping pressure approaches that minimize pressure loss through the wellbore perforations combined with nonuniform spacing are shown to be capable of substantially reducing fluid consumption and/or increasing created fracture surface area when the stress variation is mainly from fracture interaction instead of in situ stress. When in situ stress variation is dominant, limited entry methods promote more uniform growth but with higher pumping pressures and energy consumption.