Analysis of hydraulic fracturing techniques: hybrid fuzzy approaches

Abstract

Hydraulic fracturing technologies revolutionize the way petroleum industries drill the conventional and unconventional formations by the purpose for oil recovery enhancement. Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods are always considered as the preferable techniques in organizational and industrial operational performances that some of them are being widely administered for numerous purposes. The objective of this comprehensive study is to conduct an investigation about the considerable influence of five important criteria on the hydraulic fracturing techniques and select the best technology regarding enhancing oil recovery factor. Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) and Fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (FTOPSIS) analyses are applied to compare each criterion. Consequently, among the five fundamental criteria for selecting and operating hydraulic fracturing, in situ stress-strain with the score weight of 0.421 is the most important selectivity criteria. Furthermore, after analyzing the results derived from FAHP and FTOPSIS methods, hydra-jet fracturing and zipper fracturing techniques with the normalized weights of 0.186 and 0.194, and relative closeness coefficients of 0.69 with a 0.66 are considered respectively as the best and optimum techniques of hydraulic fracturing. Last but not least, the cavitation hydro-vibration fracturing and explosive fracturing are the least preferable methods among hydraulic fracturing techniques.