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Improved criterion of hydraulic fracture propagation across natural discontinuities sensitive to fluid pumping

Dimitry Chuprakov (Schlumberger), Olga Melchaeva (GazPromNeft), Romain Prioul (Schlumberger)

Engineering Mechanics and Materials in the Oilfield

Wed 9:00 - 10:30

CIT 227

Re: Engineering Mechanics & Materials in the Oilfield: Academia-Industry Opportunities We investigated the problem of a hydraulic fracture propagation through a weakly cohesive frictional discontinuity for different conditions of fracture toughness, in situ stresses, fracture intersection angle, injection parameters and permeability of the pre-existing fracture. The analytical model of the contact between a hydraulic fracture and a natural fracture is developed to provide a fast estimation of the hydraulic fracture crossing or stopping at a discontinuity given the parameters of the problem. In support, the parametric sensitivity of the fracture interaction process was performed using advanced numerical simulations through an extensive parameter space representative of hydraulic fracturing field conditions. In this work, we showed that the injection rate and viscosity of fracturing fluid are the key parameters controlling the crossing/non-crossing interaction behavior, in addition to already known fracture interaction angle and in-situ stress parameters.