Optimal design of shale gas supply chain network considering MPC-based pumping schedule of hydraulic fracturing in unconventional reservoirs

Abstract

Several approaches have been developed to design shale gas supply chain network (SGSCN) in an economically viable manner, but the connection between hydraulic fracture geometry, shale gas production, and wastewater recovery has not received much attention. Specifically, the final fracture geometry in unconventional reservoirs significantly affects shale gas production rate and it indirectly determines the amount of recovered wastewater. To take into account the relations among hydraulic fracturing jobs, wastewater generation and management, and shale gas production and management, we focus on the development of a novel framework that integrates a model predictive control (MPC)-based pumping schedule of hydraulic fracturing and a SGSCN model. Based on this developed framework, the optimal SGSCN configuration, which maximizes the overall profit, is determined by solving a mixed-integer linear programming problem. The proposed SGSCN design framework is compared to the case when the same SGSCN model is integrated with a suboptimal pumping schedule like Nolte’s pumping schedule. The overall profit of the former is 4.49% higher than that of the latter.