While revolutionizing the oil industry, the rapid rise of shale gas production has challenged our understanding shale rocks as potential reservoirs. The need for fracturing practically impermeable rock requires involving geological, geomechanical, and hydrological integrated studies. Industry has undertaken exceptional efforts to characterize shale heterogeneity and anisotropy in unprecedented detail, highlighting the complex nature of shale properties. Despite a rather simple structure of shale reservoirs, large stress variations may develop, with important implications for both fracking design and flow modeling.
In this session, we invite field, experimental, or modeling contributions that address the following key challenges: (1) Integrated analyses of shale samples coming from boreholes or from outcrops; (2) Determination of the mechanical stratification and anisotropy in shale reservoirs and its correlation with mineralogical composition and other petrophysical properties; (3) Upscaling of structural and stress-induced anisotropy of mechanical parameters of shale rocks; (4) Characteristics of mechanical and structural barriers and drivers for hydraulic fracture propagation; (5) Stress state in shale formations and its response to stimulation treatment; (6) Transport phenomena from nanopore diffusion, leakage through micropores and microfractures, up to flow in propped fractures; (7) the CO2 behavior in shale reservoirs.
The session will feature an invited presentation by Prof. Mark Zoback (Stanford University).