The Second well Logging Symposium of Japan, September 26-27, 1996
Characterization of Effective Fractures by Production
Logging at Hijiori HDR Test Site
Makoto Miyairi and Miyoshi Sorimachi
JAPEX Research Center, Japan Petroleum Exploration Co.,Ltd
1-2-1 Hamada, Mihamaku, Chiba 261, Japan
Fax: 81-43-275-9316, e-mail: miyairi@rc.japex.co.jp
Abstract
The Hot Dry Rock(HDR) program in Hijiori HDR
test site have been conducted since FY1985 to ensure
the feasibility of HDR power generation system. The
PTF well logging which is simultaneous measuring
tool of Pressure, Temperature and Flow has been
used to characterize the HDR reservoir as a most
useful production logging during a circulation test. In
FY1995, a preliminary circulation test of deeper
reservoir where the injection interval was from
2150m to 2200m depth was conducted with
circulation system consisting of an injection well and
two production wells. The PTF well log data during
the circulation test showed that about 10 feed zones
which consist of effective fractures existed in the
interval from 1500m to 2300m. By classifying each
effective fracture into the shallow and the deep
reservoir, the both of reservoirs were well
characterized. The production from the deep
reservoir increase with a borehole pressure and
primarily increase with a injection pressure. But, the
production from the shallow reservoir decrease with
a borehole pressure.
Introduction
The Hot Dry Rock (HDR) or, more generally heat
mining is a new technology to develop the thermal
energy reserved in an earth's crust. The conventional
geothermal power plant utilize natural hydrothermal
system. However, most of geothermal resources
reserved in an earth's crust can not be recovered
because of low permeability of rock. In the HDR
process for heat mining, an artificial geothermal
reservoir is created using hydraulic stimulation
techniques to propagate and open joint and fractures
in the region where sufficient temperature is found
but porosity and permeability are too low to permit
the storage and circulation of natural fluid, and
thermal energy can be extracted by circulating water
through the resulting fracture network from an
injection well to one or more production wells.
The New Energy and Industrial Technology
Development Organization(NEDO) has been
conducting HDR program in Hijiori HDR test site,
Ymagata, Japan since FY1985 to ensure the
feasibility of HDR power generation system. The
Fig.1 is a schematics of Hijiori HDR reservoirs. The
1
fracture network we call shallow reservoir was
created from the bottom of SKG-2 by a massive
hydraulic fracturing in FY1986 and well developed
through a 90 days circulation test which was
conducted using SKG-2 as the injection well and the
other three wells, HDR-1, HDR-2 and HDR-3 as the
production wells in FY1991. So called deep reservoir
was created in FY 1992 from the bottom interval of
HDR-1. HDR-3 was drilled from 1900m to 2300m
depth in FY1993 and side track well HDR-2a was
drilled from 1613m to 2300m in FY1994 to connect
the deep reservoir respectively. In FY1995, a
preliminary circulation test of a deep reservoir where
the injection interval was from 2150m to 2200m
depth of HDR-1 was conducted with two production
wells, HDR-2a and HDR-3.
In HDR, It is very important to evaluate effective
fractures which are the fractures contributing to the
circulation of injected water, because the HDR
reservoir is composed of these effective fractures.
The PTF well logging which is simultaneous
measuring tool of Pressure, Temperature and Flow
has been used to characterize these effective fractures
as a most useful production logging during a
circulation test. We show how the PTF well logging
are utilized to characterize the HDR reservoir in
Hijiori HDR test site by taking the example of the
latest circulation test called "preliminary circulation
test of deep reservoir" conducted in FY1995. In this
Q
circulation test, injected water was produced from
both of the deep and the shallow reservoirs, then
which made it difficult to evaluate the reservoirs
from the surface production data. For example, the
production data of HDR-2a at the surface showed
rapid decrease of well head pressure and flow rate
after the increase of injection flow rate from 16.7
l/sec to 34.4 l/sec. This strange behavior of HDR-2a
could not be analyzed by surface data.
Analysis of PTF well logging
The PTF well logging is usually carried out
periodically during a circulation test. The measured
PTF data are analyzed as shown as follows;
Step 1 : identify effective fractures and flash point
from temperature and flowmeter curves.
Step 2 : calculate fluid properties profile such as fluid
density and enthalpy from temperature and pressure
curves by using steam table.
Step 3 : calculate flow profile of mass flow rate from
flowmeter, fluid density and caliper curves by using
specially developed interactive flow analysis
software.
Step 4 : calculate temperature and enthalpy of fluid
from individual fracture from temperature and flow
profile by assuming conservation of enthalpy.
Step 5 : calculate mass and volumetric flow rate from
individual effective fracture from mass flow rate
measured in a surface, calculated flow profile and
fluid density.
Fig. 2 is a example of flow profile log derived from
PTF well logging conducted in HDR-2a during the
preliminary deep reservoir circulation test.
Identification and classification of effective
fractures
Effective fractures identified by PTF logging were
classified into 10 effective fractures as shown in
Fig.3. Furthermore, these fractures were compared to
those which had been identified in the 90 days
shallow reservoir circulation test in FY1991 where
the injection interval was from 1788m to 1802m
depth of SKG-2 and production wells were HDR-1,
HDR-2 and HDR-3, then, fracture No.1 to 5
classified into the shallow reservoir and No.6 to 10
classified into the deep reservoir.
Characterization of the shallow and the deep
reservoirs
Fig.4 and Fig.5 are the variation of production flow
rate and temperature of produced water from
individual effective fractures calculated from PTF
well log data. we investigated characteristics of the
shallow and the deep reservoirs on the basis of these
calculated values. Fig.4 shows that the total flow rate
is almost constant but the ratio of the flow rate
between the shallow and the deep reservoir changes
in complicated manner. Especially, in HDR-2a, right
after the increase of injection flow rate, the
production from the shallow reservoir remarkably
decrease in contrast to the increase of production
from the deep reservoir, which result in decrease of
total production. In order to investigate what control
the production, we investigated the variation of
production parameters such as production flow rate,
borehole pressure and enthalpy, flash depth, well
head pressure and injection pressure, which are
shown in Fig.6. First of all, we found that the
borehole pressure did not reflect on well head
pressure because of the change of flash depth. At the
moment right after the increase of injection flow rate,
the increased borehole pressure resulted in the
decrease of well head pressure. It is also found that
the increase of borehole pressure suppressed the
production from the shallow reservoir.
2
Fig.7-(a) shows the relation between the flow rate
from the shallow reservoir and the borehole pressure
at 1500m depth of the production wells. It is clear
that the flow rate from the shallow reservoir have a
good correlation with the draw down pressure. It
means the pressure of the shallow reservoir is kept
almost constant in spite of the variation of the
injection pressure. It is inferred that the shallow
reservoir had been well developed by the 90 days
circulation test in 1991 and have enough volume to
keep the pressure constant, then the variation of the
injection pressure does not affect directly to shallow
one. From Fig.7-(a), we can say that the productivity
index is 1.10 l/sec/Mpa in HDR-2a and 1.73
l/sec/Mpa in HDR-3. The better productivity index of
HDR-3 is agreed with the result in the 90 days
circulation test in 1991.
In case of the deep reservoir, we observed that the
flow rate increased with the borehole pressure. But,
primarily flow rate from deep reservoir was well
correlated with injection pressure as shown in Fig.
7-(b). It is inferred that the increase of injection
pressure reflect on the increase of borehole pressure
of production wells through the deep reservoir. From
Fig.7-(b), the flow impedance are estimated to be
2.53 Mpa/l/sec in HDR-2a and 3.96 Mpa/l/sec in
HDR-3, which agreed with the productivity of the
both wells.
Conclusions and discussion
By classifying each effective fracture into the
shallow and the deep reservoir, the both of reservoirs
were well characterized. The shallow and the deep
reservoirs have different production behaviors. The
production from the shallow reservoir is primarily
controlled by the borehole pressure of production
wells. The production from deep reservoir is
primarily controlled by the injection pressure. These
difference come from the difference of connectivity
and storage volume of effective fracture network.
The shallow reservoir have enough volume to keep
the reservoir pressure constant, and the injection
pressure does not reflect on the reservoir pressure
directly due to the complicated connectivity. The
deep reservoir have straight connectivity, then the
injection pressure directly reflect on the productivity.
We could make clear what primarily control the
productivity of the both reservoirs. But, there are
more issues we have to investigate. For example, we
have to delineate effective fracture network and we
have to clarify what is the most optimum production
condition. In order to resolve the first issue, we are
integrating several kind of information related to the
fractures such as PTF log data, BHTV data, fracture
mapping data by microseismic analysis, openhole
well log data and geological data into the 3D
 The Second well Logging Symposium of Japan, September 26-27, 1996

visualization tool. As for the latter issues, further measurements at Hijiori HDR test site, 3rd
investigation will be continued by collecting more International HDR Forum, SantaFe, Proceedings,
PTF log data through future circulation tests. 11-12.

Acknowledgments
About the authors
We would like to thank New Energy and Industrial
Technology Development Organization(NEDO) for Makoto Miyairi is a Research Group Manager for
allowing us to present the results obtained in "Hot JAPEX Research Center. He graduated from
Dry Rock Geothermal Power Project" in the New TOHOKU University in 1972 with a B.S. degree in
Sunshine Project of MITI, Japan. geophysical engineering. Since joining Japan
Petroleum Exploration Co.,Ltd.(JAPEX), he has been
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