Borehole Stress Orientation

sMIN
sMAX
Top View
Drilling
Induced
Fracture
Borehole
Breakout
Courtesy of Steve Hansen, Schlumberger
Types of Directional Drilling
for Fractures
Courtesy of CSPE
Nelson & Serra (1995)
Potential
Drilling
Directions
on Folds
Courtesy of CSPE
Nelson et.al.
(1987a)
After Nolen-Hoeksema & Howard (1987)
Fracture Spacing & Drilling Direction
Courtesy of AAPG
Nolen-Hoeksema &
Howard (1987)
Drilling Direction Nomograph
Courtesy of AAPG
Bedding/Fracture/Well
Rotation
unrotated
rotated
Joubert & Rice (1997)
UBI FMI
UBI
vs.
FMI
Courtesy of Steve Hansen, Schlumberger
UBI Shows
Topography

FMI Shows
Resistivity
Quantitative Fracture
Analysis
Polar projections of fold and
fault related fractures with
dip of 300 deg NW
After removing
structural
bedding dip,
fractures trend
clearly NW-SE
and to
perpendicular to
bedding.
Rotated Fracture Poles
N N
before bedding
rotation
after bedding
rotation
equal
area,
lower
hemispher
e,
stereonet
s.

fracture
poles for
all 9 wells
~ 1700
poles

Joubert & Rice (1997)
Equation - Fracture Intercept
Rate
freq
i
i
i
W

cos

i
W
i
- occurrence of i th fracture,
The fracture frequency in any
arbitrary direction is the sum
of:

- the cosine of the angle between the

normal intercept rate direction of the i th fracture,
over all fractures.
cos
i
Occurrence Weighting
(Lacazette 1990)
Fracture 2
Fracture 1

1
2
Occurrence W
L

1
cos
Fracture 2 is
less
likely to be
intercepted by
the drill hole
than fracture 1 -
as the angle of
the normal
approaches 90
deg.
W increases.
W1 < W2
Joubert & Rice (1997)
Occurrence Corrected
Rose Diagrams
occurrence weighted
fracture planes
rotated raw fracture planes
Joubert & Rice (1997)
Intercept Rate
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
NORTH
EAST
SOUTH
WEST
horizontal
15 deg.
30 deg.
45 deg.
60 deg.
75 deg.
vertical
Polar chart showing
number of fractures
intercepted per meter
for different drilling
directions - (bedding
rotated flat).
Well #1
Joubert & Rice (1997)
Aperture Variation on Rose
Diagram
N
maximum
aperture
minimum
aperture
Joubert & Rice (1997)
Courtesy of Steve Hansen, Schlumberger
Fracture
Aperture
Equation - Flow
Intercept Rate
- fracture aperture of the
i th fracture
e
i
flow
i
W
i
i
e
i

(
cos )
3
Joubert & Rice (1997)
Flow Intercept Rate
NORTH
EAST
SOUTH
WEST
HORZ.
15 DEG.
30
45
60
75
90
Joubert & Rice (1997)

Calculated Horizontal vs Vertical Drilling

0
20
40
60
80
100
120
horz. 15 30 45 60 75 Vert.
inclination angle relative to bedding
%

o
f

m
a
x
i
m
u
m

f
l
o
w

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
well #
Triassic Carbonate Reservoirs, Northern British Columbia,
Canada
From Joubert & Rice (1997)
Drilling at low angles to bedding
makes a good well
Shear Anisotropy
Preferential directional
alignment of elastic properties
due to regional stress fields
Horizontal anisotropy - uniform
laterally but not vertically
(transversely isotropic with a vertical axis
of symmetry)
Vertical anisotropy - uniform
vertically but not laterally
(transversely isotropic with a horizontal
axis of symmetry)
Shear waves travel faster along
axis of symmetry
Shear Wave Birefringence
Fracture-induced elastic
anisotropy can be detected
through shear-wave splitting,
or birefringence
Shear waves split into fast
and slow polarizations
Data are analyzed for
orientation and degree of
anisotropy indicated by the
amount of birefringence
Fast shear polarization
direction relates to fracture
orientation