The Potential for Predicting Production by Characterizing Fluid Flow and Drainage Patterns Using Microseismicity

We apply a continuum approach to describe the dynamics of seismicity observed during a hydraulic fracture of a multiple horizontal well pad. By exploiting the multi-well observation geometry, we are able to resolve the seismic moment tensors of the high-quality events. Not only does this information constrain the fracture orientations, but it can be used to reconstruct the state of stress/strain in the reservoir. We use the strain to drainage of the reservoir through a strain-flow analysis. Furthermore we examine the spatial and temporal variations in the microseismicity, as well as the energy release characteristics, to image the regions of the reservoir where plastic damage is most confined around the wellbores. To validate both approaches we use PLT data.