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Notable Papers from SPE HFTC 2022
The SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference (HFTC) was last week. There were tons of great, practically relevant, papers. People are really locked-in on the key value drivers. This blog post gives a sampling of a few of the papers that I found most interesting. I don’t discuss any of the ResFrac papers because they were in a previous blog post.
Four ResFrac papers at HFTC 2022!
We at ResFrac are coauthoring four papers at HFTC. The papers describe a parent/child case study performed with Devon in the SCOOP/STACK, our new automated history matching and economic optimization tools, a new crack propagation algorithm designed to improve numerical accuracy and handling of thin layers, and a modeling study on application of multistage hydraulic fracturing for geothermal energy extraction.
Understanding fracture morphology
Field scale hydraulic fracture simulations reveal a variety of complex fracture geometries. Very often stress interaction between the fractures leads to very asymmetric fracture growth within a stage. At the same time, for some other cases, all the fractures are more regularly shaped and symmetric. This blog post presents results of numerical simulations and analysis demonstrating how fracture morphology changes versus problem parameters for some fundamental cases. The results can be used to better understand the observed fracture complexity in a field scale simulation or as a guideline to achieve the desired fracture morphology.
ResFrac Endurance Team takes on The Triple Bypass
Three brave ResFrac riders took on the Triple Bypass rider in Colorado on August 21. The Triple Bypass is a famous Colorado ride stretching 110 miles and climbing 11,000 ft between Evergreen, CO and Vail, CO. Egor Donstov, Janz Rondon, and Garrett Fowler rode this year, sporting ResFrac jerseys and lively Mongoose tattoos. While Egor and Garrett enjoyed the views, Janz powered up the climbs, finishing in eighth in a field of over 500 riders in the 40+ category.
ResFrac user meeting
Last month we held our third annual ResFrac Symposium, where users presented case studies and panel discussions on industry topics. This year’s lineup featured six operator-speakers as well as guests from the DOE and an independent consultant. We had several talks centered around core workflows enabled by teams using ResFrac: collecting data, facilitating multidisciplinary discussions, calibrating to field diagnostics, and performing economic optimization of prospective designs.
ResFrac Endurance Team: Race Reports
The team has been consistently busy over the last few months, but somehow along the way, our ResFrac Endurance team hasn’t stopped racing and training, setting and achieving goals. We have some race reports to share about the last few months of achievements. Join us in cheering for our ResFrac crew!
ResFrac Updates: New Website, New Logo, and New Crack Propagation Algorithm (MuLTipEl)
ResFrac is releasing Egor Dontsov’s new crack propagation algorithm, MuLTipEl, a major new development in the field of fracture modeling. The algorithm tracks the position of the crack tip within each crack element, giving us unlimited spatial resolution to handle propagation across thin layers, and enables high accuracy 3D crack propagation calculations, even if using a relatively coarse mesh and accounts for detailed layering and heterogeneity of the formation.
