High-quality fracture network mapping using high frequency logging while drilling (LWD) data: MSEEL case study

Abstract

The Marcellus Shale and Energy Environmental Laboratory (MSEEL) provides a comprehensive dataset and field tests that can be used to study the significance of preexisting natural fractures in different subsurface engineering problems such as the effectiveness of the stimulation of an unconventional reservoir, optimized geothermal fluids movement and integrity of the CO2 storage site. Conventionally natural fracture intensity is obtained using sonic and micro-resistivity imaging logs. However, these techniques significantly suffer from two major deficiencies: Human bias in log interpretation and extremely long interpretation time. These two deficiencies are well-recognized in the industry; however, no standard procedures exist to address them. In this study, a new automated machine learning workflow (AMLW) is introduced that uses the LWD high-resolution acceleration data along the horizontal laterals to predict the natural fracture intensities originally obtained using sonic and micro-resistivity imaging. The accuracy and robustness of the new workflow to predict the near wellbore fracture intensities are tested using both regression and classification approaches. Both the regression and classification approaches were able to predict the fracture intensities with high accuracy (average Mean Squared Error of 0.0085 for regression and average accuracy of 0.94 in the confusion matrix for classification). We have shown that only 10%–15% of the labeled resistivity image log is required for training and validation of the machine-learning model. The Automated workflow resulted in K-Neighbors Regressor and classifier algorithms as the best algorithms with a 52.74% and 139.3% improvement in comparison to the Gradient Boosting Regression algorithm (i.e. the fifth best algorithm).