Estimation of the differential stress from the stress rotation angle in low permeable rock

Abstract

AbstractRotations of the principal stress axes are observed as a result of fluid injection into reservoirs. We use a generic, fully coupled 3‐D thermo‐hydro‐mechanical model to investigate systematically the dependence of this stress rotation on different reservoir properties and injection scenarios. We find that permeability, injection rate, and initial differential stress are the key factors, while other reservoir properties only play a negligible role. In particular, we find that thermal effects do not significantly contribute to stress rotations. For reservoir types with usual differential stress and reservoir treatment the occurrence of significant stress rotations is limited to reservoirs with a permeability of less than approximately 10−12 m2. Higher permeability effectively prevents stress rotations to occur. Thus, according to these general findings, the observed principal stress axes rotation can be used as a proxy of the initial differential stress provided that rock permeability and fluid injection rate are known a priori.