Design Diversity for Improving Efficiency and Reducing Risk in Oil and Gas Well Stimulation under Uncertain Reservoir Conditions

TL;DR

This paper proposes a portfolio-based design approach to optimize hydraulic fracturing in oil and gas reservoirs, aiming to enhance energy efficiency and reduce recovery risk under uncertain reservoir conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel portfolio combination method that balances efficiency and risk, significantly improving resource recovery and environmental impact compared to traditional single-design approaches.

Findings

Remarkable reduction in recovery variation.

Substantial increase in energy efficiency.

Effective risk management in reservoir stimulation.

Abstract

Hydraulic fracturing stimulates fracture swarm in reservoir formation though pressurized injection fluid. However restricted by the availability of formation data, the variability embraced by reservoir keeps uncertain, driving unstable gas recovery along with low resource efficiency, being responsible for resource scarcity, contaminated water, and injection-induced earthquake. Resource efficiency is qualified though new determined energy efficiency, a scale of recovery and associated environmental footprint. To maximize energy efficiency while minimize its' variation, we issue picked designs at reservoir conditions dependent optimal probabilities, assembling high efficiency portfolios and low risk portfolios for portfolio combination, which balance the variation and efficiency at optimal by adjusting the proportion of each portfolio. Relative to regular design for one well, the optimal portfolio combination applied in multiple wells receive remarkable variation reduction meanwhile substantial energy efficiency increase, in response to the call of more recovery per unit investment and less environment cost per unit nature gas extracted.