Advanced Subsurface Energy Technologies

Achieving economic flow rates from tight reservoirs, especially during the low oil and gas price scenario, require highly effective stimulation via hydraulic fracture treatment. Improved subsurface characterization, visualization, and diagnostics are key to improve the efficiency of fracture treatment. Methods of subsurface characterization during tight reservoir recovery range from downhole wireline measurements to seismic detection. Current technologies to characterize fracture development and propagation, fluid and proppant emplacement, reservoir response, and stimulated rock volume are highly limited in its capabilities. Limitations lie in limited detection capabilities, computationally expensive algorithms for acoustic analysis, and expert evaluation of the results. Oceanit proposes to develop technologies to inform hydraulic fracture stimulation treatment effectiveness, including characterization and visualization of fracture development and propagation, fluid and proppant emplacement, reservoir response and stimulated rock volume. The approach is to combine Oceanit’s smart acoustic responsive proppant with newly developed fracture diagnostic tools and improved operator-friendly methods for subsurface imaging of stimulated reservoir volume throughout the lifecycle of a well. Oceanit’s smart acoustic proppant enables mapping of propped fracture geometry and reveals the mechanical state with regards to pressure and stresses in the environment. The technology uses acoustic metamaterials to impart unique acoustic signatures to the proppant that can be detected using downhole tools or remote monitoring techniques. The unique proppant material enables greatly improved mapping of proppant location and condition along multiple stages in real-time. Processing of acoustic data is accomplished with cutting-edge artificial intelligence hardware, that provides data security with information processed at the edge of computing, off of the cloud. This enables continuous monitoring of fracture efficiency, proppant delivery, and production capabilities. For this application, Oceanit will leverage on its field deployed NERRO (Neuromorphic Edge Real-time Reasoning Operations) AI chip hardware that enables industrial edge computing in high performance environments. NERRO’s edge computing capabilities deliver unique values for applications in areas of limited or no connectivity, when latency is of high importance, in areas that deal with sensitive information and heightened cyber security risks, or if distributed AI capabilities are critical. The NERRO AI chip is field trainable and can be integrated with existing in sensors and devices that are currently in use. The smart proppant material, monitoring methods, and data processing approaches provide cost-effective tools for real-time monitoring of well performance data not routinely collected, such as downhole pressure. By effectively mapping the proppant location and characterizing the surrounding environment stresses, predictions can be made about the production efficiency of the well, which will ultimately reduce costs associated with injecting resources and time spent fracturing a non-producing well. Current well statistics and obtained data from smart proppant mapping will guide future placement of fracturing stages and expose areas ripe for refracturing. These efforts will improve understanding of the processes involved in unconventional oil and gas (UOG) resource development, advance technologies and engineering practices to ensure these resources are developed efficiently and increase the supply of U.S. oil and natural gas resources to enhance national energy security.