Field-Resilient Acoustic Micro-Emitters for Accurate Cost-Effective Fracture Mapping

Today’s exploration and production of unconventional fossil fuels can be inefficient due to lack of detailed images of the reservoir, leaving large potential reserves unrecovered- In order to enhance the production and yield of shale resources, it is necessary to map the natural and induced fractures in greater detail and at much higher resolution than what is achievable with today’s state-of-the-art technology- However, microseismic surveys are severely limited in their ability to provide detailed information about fracture width, or identify the subset of the fracture network that is connected and responsible for production- Furthermore, current microseismic techniques lack the ability to visualize the dynamics of fracture propagation (the real-time evolution of fracture lengths, widths and orientations as they propagate out from the borehole), which is critical in controlling and optimizing the stimulation process-