Laboratoryjna symulacja wgniatania ziaren podsadzki w formację złożową typu tight gas

This paper presents the issue of damage to the fracture wall surface, after hydraulic fracturing of the hydrocarbons reservoir. It is caused by proppant embedment into the fracture wall and the impression of rock material from the fracture wall surface. These phenomena have a negative effect on the flow of hydrocarbons from the rock to the fracture and on maintaining the width of fracture after the closing of the rock mass, when the pressure drops below the fracturing pressure. The developed methodology for imagining the size of the embedment phenomenon and the rock material impression was verified by laboratory tests. The tests were performed for Rotliegend sandstone (tight gas formation) from Polish unconventional reservoirs. It was characterized by a quartz content of 73.3%. The tests were conducted for an initially soaked rock (crosslinked natural polymer). The fracture was packed with proppant ceramics ISP 20/40 with grain size from 0.850 mm to 0.425 mm and the surface concentration of the proppant was 4.88 kg/m2 . The laboratory simulation of the embedment phenomenon was performed for compressive stress of 86.5 MPa for 6 hours at 127°C. Based on the imagining of the core faces (fracture walls) in 3D and their analyses, the total average depth of proppant embedment into the fracture walls was 0.091 mm and the total average height of the rock material squeezed out was 0.077 mm. The total decrease of the fracture width packed with proppant grains was 0.168 mm. The average damage of the fracture surface by the proppant grains was 31.5%. The test procedure applied might be used in the evaluation of the susceptibility of reservoir rock to the embedment phenomenon and the rock material squeezed out, as well as for the selection of frac fluid and proppant for fracturing of hydrocarbon reservoirs.