Interaction of Neighboring Stages in the Set of Hydraulically Stimulated Horizontal Wells: Are the Stages too Close?

Microseismic moment tensors are determined from a number of stages in a multiwell hydraulic fracutre treatment. These moment tensors are point measures of the strain in the reservoir and can be related to volumetric opening and closure of cracks. The data for these stages locate asymmetrically with respect to the treatment well in a region of the reservoir that was recently fractured. The strain from these data show volumetric increase and decrease indicating that this pre-existing fracutre network opened and closed as the treatment progressed. The dominance of closure for the later set of events implies that the stages were too proximal as previously stimulated regions were closed reducing the enhancement in permeability in these regions.