Produced Flowback Salts vs. Induced-Fracture Interface: A Field and Laboratory Study

Abstract

Summary The water recovered from hydraulic-fracturing operations (i.e., flowback water) is highly saline, and can be analyzed for reservoir characterization. Past studies measured ion-concentration data during imbibition experiments to explain the production of saline flowback water. However, the reported laboratory data of ion concentration are approximately three orders of magnitude lower than those reported in the field. It has been hypothesized that the significant surface area created by hydraulic-fracturing operations is one of the primary reasons for the highly saline flowback water. In this study, we investigate shale/water interactions by measuring the mass of total ion produced (TIP) during water-imbibition experiments. We conduct two sets of imbibition experiments at low-temperature/low-pressure (LT/LP) and high-temperature and high-pressure (HT/HP) conditions. We study the effects of rock surface area (As), temperature, and pressure on TIP during imbibition experiments. Laboratory results indicate that pressure does not have a significant effect on TIP, whereas increasing As and temperature both increase TIP. We use the flowback-chemical data and the laboratory data of ion concentration to estimate the fracture surface area (Af) for two wells completed in the Horn River Basin (HRB), Canada. For both wells, the estimated Af values from LT/LP and HT/HP test results have similar orders of magnitude (approximately 5.0×106 m2) compared with those calculated from production and flowback rate-transient analysis (RTA) (approximately 106 m2). The proposed scaleup procedure can be used as an alternative approach for a quick estimation of Af using early-flowback chemical data.