The Impact of Stimulation Treatment Size on Ultimate Recovery From the Hydraulically Fractured Shale Gas Wells

Shale gas reservoirs are key to extending a high rate of methane production by a few more decades. Massive stimulation jobs have been developed to produce gas at economic rates. However, optimal design of stimulation and horizontal drilling is challenging due to the unique reservoir conditions. The large stimulation jobs may generate the geometrically complex hydraulic fracture networks that limit gas production. Given importance of mudrock reservoirs, accurately estimating ultimate recovery (EUR) is critical. Here, we study the impacts of the massive hydraulic fracturing jobs on the physics-based scaling curve forecasts. We compare reservoir simulations with varying stimulation job sizes. Also, we incorporate idealized hydraulic fracture geometries into a commercial reservoir simulator and compare the resulting generalized scaling curves. Results show that massive stimulation treatments may not always result in an effective mudrock play development. Additionally, our reservoir simulations reveal a numerical justification for the large fracturing jobs and the unexpected gas production. Finally, we confirm the theoretical predictive power of the scaling curve method.