L.B.
Thompson, SPE, Mobil E&P Technical Center
Introduction
New technologies in the last decade (most notably well-
bore-image logs) have shown that the rocks in most
hydrocarbon-bearing reservoirs contain faults and frac-
tures. This observation has generated an intense interest in
understanding “fractured reservoirs.” As a result, numer-
ous industry and academic groups are working on differ-
ent facets of the problem. In addition to research efforts by
most major oil companies, these include the Rock Frac-
ture Project at Stanford U., the Rock Deformation
Research Group at Leeds U., and the Fractured Reservoir
Characterization Group of the Petroleum Engineering
Dept. at the U. of Texas.
Fractured reservoirs are defined here as reservoirs whose
productivity and performance are controlled or strongly
affected by faults and fractures occurring in the field. For
a reservoir manager, four issues need to be addressed.
1. Is there any evidence that faults and fractures are
affecting the performance of my reservoir?
2. If so, what is a description of their important features?
3. How can that information be used to build a quantita-
tive 3D model for performance prediction?
4. How can the predictive model be applied to optimize
production or ultimate recovery from this reservoir?
Evidence of Fault/Fracture Control on Production
“Effective” fractures are defined here as those fractures that
impact reservoir production by enhancing flow, by parti-
tioning the field, or by allowing early breakthrough of
water or injected fluids. The ability to predict the presence
of effective faults and fractures allows the reservoir engi-
neer to collect appropriate data and to make good deci-
sions while drilling the initial discovery and delineation
wells on a prospect. Recent advances in seismic wavelet
recording and processing [multicomponent recording,
amplitude variation with offset (AVO)] hold the promise of
being able to recognize a preferred anisotropy to wave
propagation in the rocks that reflects an oriented arrange-
ment of liquids in an existing fracture system.1 Seismic
lines show major faults, and dip-attribute mapping com-
bined with fault-interaction analysis based on structural
Copyright 2000 Society of Petroleum Engineers
This is paper SPE 56010. Distinguished Author Series articles are general, descriptive
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52
principles allows prediction of an increasing amount of
detail about the sealing nature of the fault zones.2
While drilling, interaction of the bit and the mud system
with the in-situ stress in the rock determines borehole sta-
bility, completions strategy, and potential pipe failure
throughout the life of the well. Recent work on small mud
losses (less than 0.25 bbl in some cases) shows that, as a
permeable fracture or fault zone is intersected by the well-
bore, careful observation can document effective fractures,
not just catastrophic mud loss.3 Other wellbore-based data
sets that can be useful in identifying faults and fractures are
structural logging of conventional core, rubble zones and
core loss in fault-damage intervals, and image logs for
viewing damage intersected by the bit.
As a field is put on production, injection and production
anomalies combined with transient-pressure testing give
indications of reservoir compartments and allow better
analysis of fluid-flow anisotropies.4 Detailed geochemistry
of hydrocarbons can indicate compartments, and analysis
of produced waters can differentiate in-situ water from
aquifer fluids that have been coned through conductive
faults and fractures. Combining these data with the various
data types mentioned earlier can indicate that the existing
effective-fault and -fracture network in a reservoir is
strongly impacting performance.
Description of Effective-Fracture Systems
Describing the effective-fracture network in a reservoir
must be done by integrating relevant data from wells (wire-
line logs and conventional cores), from well tests (produc-
tion logs, interference tests, fluid typing), and from field-
wide observations (reservoir-scale 3D seismic and outcrop
analogs). With these data, fracture types (extensional,
compressional, shear, induced), geometries, properties
(distributions of porosity and permeability), interaction
with matrix, and deformation history can be determined
and the effective-fracture system can be defined.
Modern image-log data sets provide spectacular views of
the borehole wall (visual and acoustic images) and the
near-well rock volume (electrical images).5 These logs are
capable of imaging features that are only a few millimeters
in size. Fractures are often visible on these images (Fig. 1)
and are easily measured in terms of physical and geometri-
cal attributes (distribution attitude and aperture6). New
sonic devices (dipole shear) use Stonely-wave propagation
downhole to detect fluid-filled fractures that extend farther
away from the wellbore.
New techniques of examining microfractures in conven-
tional cores can also be used to document timing relation-
ships between multiple sets of fractures and with cements
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Fig. 1—Electrical image log. Surfaces indicated on the
log truncate sediments, indicating fault offset.
that may have further degraded or enhanced fracture
porosity and permeability.7 Microfracture analysis can also
be used to establish scaling relationships of fracture aper-
ture to length. Recent advances in statistical theory have
shown power-law statistics and fractal analysis can be used
to predict field-scale performance features from large-scale
(seismic) and small-scale (microfracture) observations.8
Laboratories that use triaxial-strain devices can provide
data on physical rock properties, such as Poisson’s ratio,
which can be used to build quantitative models of rock
deformation.
Testing of injection or producing wells also provides data
for analyzing fractured reservoirs. Production logs (spinner
surveys and production-logging-tool logs) can indicate pri-
mary fluid entry points and, when coupled with image
logs, can give direct indications of effective fractures. Inter-
ference and transient-pressure tests can give good indica-
tions of fracture conductivity and storativity and of the
locations and extent of reservoir compartmentalization by
faults and healed fracture systems. Fingerprinting hydro-
carbon fluids at a fine scale can also show compartments.
Larger-scale data sets can be valuable for establishing
field-scale structural heterogeneities. Three-dimensional
seismic over a field can indicate fracture anisotropies, and
physical-outcrop analogs of the producing facies can pro-
vide quantitative data sets of fracture spacing, relation-
ships of different fault and fracture sets, and distribution of
the effective sets.
Quantitative 3D Fracture Modeling
Recent advances in computer 3D modeling packages have
allowed construction of models that honor the structural
geometry of a reservoir.9 These models are based on inte-
grating multiple mapped structural surfaces (either from
field maps tied by well datums or by depth-corrected seis-
mic surfaces), fault surfaces, and predicted structural
geometry by use of structural geology principles.
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Fig. 2—Work flow for analyzing fractured reservoirs.
Discrete fracture-network models can be constructed
from scan-line data—either horizontal scan lines (outcrop
data, horizontal wells) or vertical to inclined scan lines
(wellbores). New software systems combine these obser-
vations with spherical statistics and geomechanics to con-
struct predictive networks of the fractures.10
For a quantitative 3D model that is useful for modeling
field performance, one ideally would like to have the dis-
tribution of effective fractures through the field coupled by
geomechanics to the dynamic stress that will affect pro-
ducibility throughout the life of the reservoir. To do this,
discrete fracture models based on well and outcrop obser-
vations must be combined with fluid-flow models of
matrix/fracture interaction and with the distribution of
other physical attributes, such as depositional facies and
diagenesis. As noted earlier, these issues are the focus of
numerous university and industry studies, but a fully func-
tional model is still far in the future.
Example
Fig. 2 shows a flow diagram of how analysis of a fractured
reservoir might be approached. This process is extensive
and includes all the investigatory elements outlined previ-
ously because each fractured reservoir is unique; few, if
any, generalizations can be made about them. The 3D
model referred to in the regional structural framework box
usually is a set of surfaces that can be generated in such
software systems as 3D MOVE and GEOSEC 3D. Reser-
voir-scale deformation elements are the faults and fractures
that impact producibility.
Discrete modeling of these deformation elements is pos-
sible with software products, such as FRACMAN from
Golder & Assocs. or FRACA from Inst. Français du Pét-
role. Effective property modeling refers to upscaling of the
discrete models to a more generic 3D distribution of poros-
ity, permeability, and water saturation that can be carried
into full-field reservoir simulation studies.
Fig. 3 is a summary of this approach on a carbonate field.
Fig. 3a shows the reservoir as predicted from traditional 2D
seismic and initial well data sets. Several major faults are
recognized, and several more features intersected by the
wells indicate that faults may be controlling the produc-
53

Fig. 3—Faulted carbonate field example: (a) major
faults interpreted from siesmic and (b) zones of
enhanced porosity.
tion. After applying a rigorous study like the one outlined,
Fig. 3b was generated to show the predicted distribution of
enhanced fault and fracture porosity across the reservoir. If
this model is correct, it allows for optimal reservoir man-
agement, predicting the location and orientation of the
most cost-effective set of wells and predicting hydrocarbon
volumes and production rates more accurately.
Effective Management of Fractured Reservoirs
To manage a fractured reservoir optimally, one needs to
establish injection/production scenarios (pressure mainte-
nance strategies, enhanced recovery strategies, pattern ori-
entation, deviated well orientations, and other such sce-
narios), bypassed zones or compartments need to be pre-
dicted, and effective risk-based economic scenarios need
to be able to be run.
Each fractured reservoir is unique. It was created by the
interaction of stresses in the Earth’s crust with the rocks
that were deposited (or intruded) into the crust, then dam-
aged, and then filled with hydrocarbons. To construct an
accurate geological model of the reservoir, understanding
the entire history of deposition, lithification, structural
deformation (perhaps a series of deformation events), dia-
genesis, and oil emplacement is critical. Furthermore, these
reservoirs tend to be “stress sensitive,” which means that
they are strongly affected by the in-situ stress that exists in
the reservoir today. Therefore, an understanding of how
geomechanics will impact the life of production in these
fields is important for optimum reservoir management.
Early recognition of a fractured reservoir is important
for developing effective management strategies. Knowing
that faults and fractures are critical to performance allows
tailoring of a data-collection scheme to gather critical
information concerning (1) fault location and transmissi-
bility; (2) the probability that certain faults will cone
water, leading to premature production declines; and (3)
prediction of permeability anisotropies that would make a
line-drive pattern more effective than radial drainage for
enhanced recovery.
Conclusions
Management of fractured reservoirs depends on an array of
studies that cover a variety of geological, mechanical, sta-
54
tistical, and fluid-flow topics. Modern techniques for iden-
tifying faults and fractures include multicomponent 3D-
seismic acquisition and analysis, careful monitoring of
small mud losses during drilling, pressure-transient tests
and analysis, borehole-image-log interpretation, microfrac-
ture analysis of thin-sections, and laboratory strain-relax-
ation analysis for geomechanical properties.
Quantitative fracture modeling incorporates analytical
elements from structural geology, geostatistics, fluid-flow
theory, geomechanics, upscaling, and reservoir simula-
tion. Industry and academia are making progress on the
integration of these elements into a coherent, dynamic
model of the reservoir, but such an optimized model is
still in the future. To date, the best answer for dealing
with fractured reservoirs is to collect appropriate, consis-
tent data; work all the issues in an integrated fashion
as outlined earlier; and base ultimate decisions on
solid scientific principles. No simple answers exist for
fractured reservoirs.
References
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Laird B. Thompson currently works at Mobil E&P
Technical Center in Dallas. His expertise is in wellbore-
based fault and fracture analysis. With Mobil since 1974 as
a biostratigrapher, he has worked on Pliopleistocene Gulf of
Mexico wells; in the Hibernia area offshore eastern Canada
providing general stratigraphic and basin-analysis support;
and, since 1987, with borehole image logs. Thompson
holds a BS degree from Stanford U.; an MS degree from the
U. of California, Davis; and a PhD degree from the U. of
Texas, Dallas.
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