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Vector Scanning - Hydro-fracture Monitoring with Surface Microseismic Data (SPE 152913)
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, 74th EAGE Conference and Exhibition incorporating EUROPEC 2012, Jun 2012, cp-293-00442
- ISBN: 978-90-73834-27-9
Abstract
For monitoring hydraulic fracture (HF) in oil/gas fields the most reliable seismic method to avoid the adverse effect of strong surface noises is using downhole microseismic surveys . Nevertheless, downhole measurement is more expensive and limited by the availability of suitable boreholes in the vicinity of the hydro-fracture site. By all means seismic surveys conducted on land surface bear the largest flexibility and are more economic than downhole measurements. As a significant progress in hydro-fracture monitoring Duncan et al developed a surface monitoring system using seismic arrays centered at the hydro-fracture point. This monitoring method requires large-scale and prolonged operations; thus the cost-effectiveness is still less than ideal. In this paper we present a novel approach for land monitoring of hydro-fractures that uses only sparse seismic stations far from fracturing vehicles; and the total number of seismic stations is much less than previous approaches; so that the cost-effectiveness is significantly improved. With a small-scale seismic array on land surface we have monitored the hydro-fracture processes using a vector scanning technique for imaging hydro-fractures and determining rupture focal mechanisms. The applications of this technique to a synthetic data set based on numerical modeling and the real-world field data show that it is able to trace the tempo-spatial development of hydro-fractures even when the signal to noise ratio (S/N) is lower than 0.5. The vector scanning technique significantly shows the fracture imaging quality, and provides us a cost-effective approach for monitoring flow-enhancement hydro-fracture processes.