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Recent Recorded Talks on EGS and DFIT
Below are links to watch two recently recorded talks. The first was a presentation with ThinkGeoEnergy discussing the impressive results from Fervo Energy’s recent Project Red pilot. The second was a presentation with whitson summarizing the URTeC-2019-123 compliance method procedure for interpreting DFITs. If you are interested in either topic, please check them out!
Practical guidelines for DFIT interpretation using the ‘compliance method’ procedure from URTeC-2019-123
This blog post provides practical tips for interpreting Diagnostic Fracture Injection Tests (DFITs) using the ‘compliance method’ procedure initially developed by McClure et al. (2016) and refined in the paper URTeC-2019-123, which summarized results from a joint industry study performed with a consortium of operators. The results from McClure et al. (2016) demonstrated that common practices for stress estimation often underestimate the true magnitude of the minimum principal stress, a finding that has been subsequently been confirmed by direct in-situ measurements and laboratory experiments, as well as in the field measurements reviewed by McClure et al. (2016).
Thermoelastic fracturing and buoyancy-driven convection – Surprising sources of longevity for EGS circulation
To maximize value from an EGS system, we need to optimize flow rate, well spacing, and well configuration. These engineering decisions will make the difference between a money loser and a cash cow. I’ve recently run ResFrac simulations of long-term EGS circulation and observed some surprising and intriguing results.
Fervo Energy’s ‘Project Red’ Results Are a Historic Breakthrough for Geothermal Energy – What Comes Next?
Fervo Energy announced the results from their ‘Project Red’ pilot in northern Nevada (Norbeck and Latimer, 2023; Ma, 2023). The results are spectacular. For nearly 50 years, the goal of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (aka, Hot Dry Rock) has been to convert low permeability, hot formations into economically viable geothermal reservoirs (Murphy et al., 1977). Success has been elusive. During stimulation, flow tends to localize into a small number of flowing fracture pathways. This limits the flow capacity and heat sweep efficiency of the resulting reservoir.
ResFrac at the Comrades Marathon in South Africa (an Ultramarathon)
Comrades Marathon is the world’s largest and oldest ultramarathon. The first race was in 1921. The number of registrants for this year was capped at 20k. The marathon runs from the city of Durban to Pietermaritzburg (“up” run) or in the other direction (“down” run). The “down” run is a little bit longer at around 90 km, while the “up” run is 87 km. This year we did the “down” run, but it was shortened to 87.7 km or 54.5 miles. “15 minutes less of pleasure” – as one of my friends said.
Impact of well orientation on well productivity
Hydraulic fractures tend to propagate in a plane that is perpendicular to the least principal stress, as noted by Hubbert and Willis in 1957. As a result, unconventional oil and gas wells are typically drilled in the direction of Shmin to maximize drainage area. However, in some regions, due to acreage constrains by operators, wells are drilled in different directions, regardless of the stress orientation to maximize acreage production by maximizing the number of wells per acreage.
Recorded ARMA HFC 2023 Series Presentation– Optimization of Perforation Phasing for Improving Uniformity of Proppant Distribution Between Clusters
This ARMA Hydraulic Fracturing Community (HFC) presentation summarizes the work on proppant transport in horizontal perforated wellbores. Specifically, it discusses the model for proppant distribution between perforations depending on their orientation and location within the stage, optimal configurations are proposed, and performance is evaluated.
