The Influence of Time and Pump Rate on Stress Interference in Zipper Fracturing

Abstract

Zipper fracturing is becoming popular as a method that may be used to improve production performance in wells in pad drilling. Fracture network is expected in zipper fracturing, which leads to high production. The time between two consecutive stages of a horizontal well, leak-off coefficient, and pump rate have a great effect on the induced fractures, which leading to a more efficient fracture network. We will focus on the factor of time and pump rate in this paper. For the same leak-off coefficient, firstly, different initial width is calculated in different pump rate, and then with change equation is formulated from Carter’s leak off model. The stress change of different initial fracture width can be illustrated according to this model. The results show that: the bigger pump rate, the bigger initial width, which leads to a slower stress change. There is an inspiration for field zipper fracturing. Longer time between consecutive stages, that mean decrease in stress shadow, is beneficial to complex networks.