An Interpretation of Microseismic Spatial Anomalies,b-values, and Magnitude Analyses To Identify Activated Fracture Networks in Horn River Basin

Abstract

SummaryWe analyzed microseismic spatial and temporal distribution, magnitudes, b-values, and treatment data to interpret and explain the observed anomalies in microseismic events recorded during exploitation of shale gas reservoirs in the Horn River Basin of Canada. The b-value shows the relationship between the number of seismic events in a certain area and their magnitudes in a semilogarithmic scale. The b-value is important because small changes in b-value represent large changes in the predicted number of seismic events. In this study, b-value is considered as an indicator of the mechanism of observed microseismicity during hydraulic-fracturing treatments.We estimated the directional diffusivity to define the microseismicity front curve for each stage of hydraulic fracturing. On the basis of our definition of an average front curve, we managed to separate most of the microseismic events that are related to natural-fracture activation from hydraulic-fracturing microseismic events. We analyzed b-values for microseismic events of each stage before and after separating fracture-activation microseismic events from original data, and created a map of b-values in the study area. This allowed us to approximately locate activated fractures mostly in the northeastern part of the study wellpad. The b-value map agrees with our assumption of activated-fracture locations and high ratio of seismic activities. The dominant direction of the suggested activated natural fractures agrees with the general trend of the Trout Lake fault zone located approximately 20 km west of the study area.Suggested fracture direction also agrees with anomalous-events density, energy distribution, and treatment data. We are proposing intermediate b-values for calculation of the stimulated reservoir volume (SRV) in areas with both hydraulically fractured events and events related to natural-fracture-network activation in those instances in which it is not viable to separate events based on their origin.