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Coupled Geomechanical and Fluid-Flow Modeling For Injection-Induced Seismicity Prediction
Coupled Geomechanical and Fluid-Flow Modeling For Injection-Induced Seismicity Prediction
Azra N. Tutuncu* and Binh T. Bui, Petroleum Engineering Department and Unconventional Natural Gas and
Oil Institute (UNGI), Colorado School of Mines
Summary perception on induced seismicity still affects the oil and gas
operations and regulation. Right before the release of the
While creating the a lift for local economies and National Academy of Science (NAS) induced-seismicity
technological advancements, shale gas development also has study (June 2012), a documented case of injection induced
raised significant concern on surface and groundwater seismicity was reported in Youngstown, Ohio (M 4.0), in
contamination, air pollution, and more recently induced late 2011. More recently, state investigation of five small
seismicity and geo-hazard risks. In this study, the stress tremors in March 2014 in the Youngstown area at the
alteration along a fault is estimated using coupled Appalachian foothills, Ohio, found that the injection of sand
geomechanics and fluid flow modeling. Examples from gas and water during fracturing in the Utica Shale might have
shale and shale oil reservoir hydraulic fracturing and waste increased stress on small and unknown faults nearby. The
disposal operations are provided toward a better state placed a moratorium on drilling activity near the
understanding and predictive methodology for induced epicenter of where the small earthquakes occurred, while
seismicity. The role of various factors on induced seismicity allowing five existing wells in the same area to continue
due to fluid injection is discussed. It is shown that production. Although earlier studies had linked earthquakes
microseismic monitoring along with coupled geomechanics in the same region to deep-injection wells for disposal of
and fluid flow models and statistical analysis of the fracturing wastewater, these small tremors marked the first
microseismic data can provide a good lead on prediction of time in the U.S. that have been tied directly to fracturing.
fault reactivation and induced seismicity. This imposed a change in the permitting conditions requiring
all new drilling sites within 3 miles of a known fault or
Introduction seismic activity of M ≥ 2.0 Richter to install sensitive
seismic-monitoring equipment to get a drilling permit.
In the United States, the states with large petroleum reserves Internationally, 2011 small tremors recorded in the U.K.
and significant unconventional development activities are have also introduced a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing.
considered to be the areas with minor seismicity and very
little potential earthquakes. However, recent sizable Earthquakes result from the slippage along faults that
earthquakes (2 - 5.3 Richter) in these low seismicity areas in releases tectonic stresses growing large enough to exceed a
the states of Texas, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Ohio have fault’s breaking strength. The slip along a fault can be due to
raised further concerns and associated interest in the role of pore pressure alteration as a result of fluid injection or
fluid disposal as well as the hydraulic fracturing and production. As pore pressure increase the Mohr’s circle
production on induced seismicity. shifts toward the failure envelope resulting in earlier failure
of the fault. The friction angle and cohesion strength of the
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently reported more fault material are also functions of the stress as well as the
than 300 earthquakes magnitude M > 3 Richter in the period compatibility of the native and injected fluids due to the
between 2010 and 2012 compared to an average rate of 21 rock-fluid interactions (Tutuncu, 2008).
events per year in the period of 1967–2000. Most events are
associated with waste disposal or water injection for The magnitude of the stress alteration causing the fault
enhanced hydrocarbon recovery. Magnitude of these small slippage is a function of how close the fault is to its critical
earthquakes tends to increase as the total injected fluid stress. The properties of the formation in which fault is
volumes. Injection pressures and the rates have been studied present is also critical to initiate the movement. Earthquake
among the key influencing factors of these tremors. magnitude is a measure of the amount of energy released,
while earthquake intensity is a measure of the level of
Microseismic events induced from the hydraulic fracturing ground shaking at a specific location. The intensity of an
operations typically vary in magnitude from –4.0 to –1.0. earthquake depends on factors such as distance from the
Induced seismicity from the wastewater injection, as stated earthquake source and local geologic conditions, as well as
in National Research Council report (2012), has occurred in magnitude, that can be estimated from seismic moment, Mo:
less than 1% of the injection wells. Induced seismicity with 2
M log M o 10 .7 (1)
magnitude M > 1 Richter scale from hydraulic fracturing 3
operations is also very rare while there is more recorded The seismic moment is calculated using the fault shear
evidence of induced seismicity activities with higher energy modulus, G, fault slip area, As, and fault slip length, Ls, as,
release from enhanced geothermal system operations. Public
Mathematical Modeling
To calculate the stress acting along the fault due to the effect
of fluid injection, a coupled geomechanics and fluid flow
model were implemented simultaneously solving the fluid
flow and geomechanics equations for fluid pressure,
displacement, and temperature. The continuity equation for
phase i using Darcy’s Law as,
¶
Ñ · éë ri kli ( Ñpi - g iÑD)ùû + ri qi = éë ri (1- e v )f Si ùû (3)
Figure 1: Greater than 0.5 magnitude earthquakes occurred since ¶t
injection started at PVU Well #1 as a function of date and distance The conservation of momentum and energy equations are
from the injection well. The radius of the circle represents the event written in equations (4) and (5), respectively.
magnitude (Block et al., 2012).
2u
F s 2 (4)
Once a “quiet” state, Texas has experienced a number of t
¶é c ù
nc n
å( h ) å
earthquakes in the north near Barnett shale operations and in (5)
-Ñ · T,i ri vi f + Ñ · ( kT ÑT ) = êf ( ui ri si ) + (1- f ) us rs ú
the south near Eagle Ford formation with magnitudes varing ¶t ê i=1 úû
i=1 ë
from 2.0 to 4.8 Richter. The disposal injection rates indicates
where D is formation depth; 𝐹⃗ is external force vector; G is
that in the absence of faults nearby injection sites, no
seismicity occurred. Higher injection rates created higher shear modulus; kT is heat conductivity; 𝑘 is relative
probability of slippage at the faults and observed permeability tensor; Ls is fault length; q̂ is specific flow rate;
earthquakes in Mc Mullen, Atascosa, Karnes, and Bees Si is phase saturation; u is the displacement
counties in Texas as discussed in detail in Tutuncu (2014). vector;isporosity; t is time, T is temperature; isstrain;
Several well nearby where the epicenter of a 4.8 Richter visvolumetric strain; fsare density of fluid and rock;
scale earthquake occurred in October 2011 in Eagle Ford in is the mobility of fluid; and s is stress tensor.
McMullen County, Texas has been investigated in this study.
An investigation of the seismic records from several wells
Figure 2. The hydraulic fracturing pressure and microseismic dataset collected at an Eagle Ford well multistage hydraulic fracturing operation.
The microseismic events stop when injection is ceased.
Results and Discussion stress acting on the fault can be roughly estimated as a function
of fault orientation and injection time. The simulation was run
Three governing equations above are solved implicitly for fluid for a hydraulic fracturing operation near a fault. The fault was
phase pressure, temperature, and displacement. From placed at a distance from the horizontal injection well. Moving
displacement and the elastic properties of the formation, the the fault in y direction away from the injection site, the stress
strain and stress magnitudes have been calculated. Hence, the alteration near the fault is estimated. Large changes in stress
state observed when fault was placed close enough to the caused by fluid injection acting on the fault is small when fault
injection site (60 m.). It is evident that the alteration of stress is away from the injection wells. Lubrication of the fault by the
nearby a fault potentially causes induced seismicity events injection fluid may reduce friction coefficient and is another
during high rate fluid injection operations. When the fault is key parameter to evaluate for failure. Theoretically, the
moved to 180 m. and 1 km. away from the injection site, the distance from the wellbore to the fault does not affect the
effect was significantly reduced. magnitude of the earthquakes. However, rock-fluid
interactions due to fluid invasion into fault may change shear
modulus and failure stress of the fault and affecting the seismic
moment. The slip movement is constrained by the reservoir
stress condition, stress acting along the fault, fault frictional
stress and the petrophysical properties of the formation. An
example used for our simulation for calculated shear stress and
the dimension of the fault with the earthquake magnitudes
shown in Figures 4 and 5, respectively.
12000
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5 formation thickness = 30 [m]
formation thickness = 90 [m]
0
0 100 200 300 400 500
Fault Length [m]
Summary
REFERENCES
Block, L., W. Yeck, V. King, S. Derouin, and C. Wood, 2012, Review of geologic investigations and
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Evans, D. M., 1966, The Denver area earthquakes and the Rocky Mountain arsenal disposal well: The
Mountain Geologist, 3, 23–26.
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Tutuncu, A. N., 2014, Microseismic coupled geomechanical modeling for environmental risk evaluation
in shale reservoir developments: Proceedings of the 8th Asian Rock Mechanics Symposium,
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U. S. National Research Council, 2012, Induced seismicity potential in energy technologies: National
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