What are the alternative pumping strategies to stimulate areservoir without triggering distant faults?

In the context of deep reservoir exploitation, it is necessary to enhance reservoir permeability before exploitation. One method to achieve this is by conducting stimulations through fluid injection, which increases pore pressure, reduces the effective normal stress and allows dilatant shear and porosity increase along small fractures in the reservoir, in the vicinity of the injection well. The pore pressure diffuses throughout the reservoir and can also sometimes reach distant faults that are critically stressed, with a risk to trigger seismicity along these. The model we propose aims to decrease the effective normal stress reduction caused by pressure disturbance along such distant faults, which can cause the rupture of critically stressed distant faults and induce seismic activity. This work investigates an alternative pumping method to stimulate a reservoir without triggering distant faults. To achieve this, a numerical model based on the finite difference method has been developed to solve the diffusion equation of pressure disturbances. The simplifying assumption is that the domain is isotropic and homogeneous. The 2D domain represents the fault plane and permeable damaged zone embedded in less permeable rock. To validate the numerical model, the numerical distant pressure disturbances are compared to analytical solutions developed from the Green's function of the diffusion equation. The numerical model investigates the impact of a time-dependent oscillating injection strategy on near-well and distant pressure disturbances, in comparison to other tested methods, to minimize induced seismicity. The results suggest that the oscillating pumping strategy has the potential to significantly reduce induced seismicity on distant faults. Future research will involve developing mitigation strategies using more complex models that incorporate realistic fault geometries and operational conditions.