Exploration and drilling for natural gas in North America has moved radically away from conventional reservoirs to focus on unconventional reservoirs such as tight gas sands and shales. These reservoirs have low porosity and near-zero permeability with gas stored in natural fractures and within the matrix porosity. Economic gas production requires hydraulic fracture stimulation to open connections to existing natural fractures or matrix porosity, and successful stimulation depends on the formation's geomechanical brittleness being capable of supporting extensive induced fractures. However, despite adequate stimulation, significant variations exist between wells in expected ultimate recovery (EUR) due to the heterogeneity of these resource plays. Consequently, predicting natural fractures or fracture-prone “sweet spots” is essential to optimize development of such plays.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.