PO173364 DOI: 10.
2118/173364-PA Date: 5-May-16 Stage: Page: 133
Evaluating Fracture-Fluid Flowback in
Marcellus Using Data-Mining Technologies
Qiumei Zhou, Pennsylvania State University; Robert Dilmore, National Energy Technology Laboratory; and
Andrew Kleit and John Yilin Wang, Pennsylvania State University
Summary
Natural-gas recovery from low-permeability unconventional res-
ervoirs—enabled by advanced horizontal drilling and multistage
hydraulic-fracture treatment—has become a very important
energy resource in the past decade. While evaluation of early gas-
production data to assess likely rate decline and ultimate gas re-
covery has been reported in literature, flowback-water recovery
has been given little consideration. Fracture-fluid flowback is
defined herein as aqueous phase produced within 3 weeks follow-
ing a fracture treatment (exclusive of well shut-in time). Field
data from Marcellus shale wells in northeastern West Virginia
indicated approximately 2 to 26% of the fracture fluid is recov-
ered during flowback. However, stimulation of gas shale is a com-
plex engineering process, and the factors that control the
volumetric flowback performance are not well-understood.
The objective of this paper is to use post hoc analysis to iden-
tify correlations between fracture-fluid flowback and attributes of
well completion and geological setting, and to identify those fac-
tors that are most important in predicting flowback performances.
To accomplish this objective we selected a representative subset
of 187 wells for which complete data are available (from a full set
of 631 wells), including well location, completion data, hydraulic-
fracture-treatment data, and production data. The wells were clas-
sified into four groups on the basis of geological settings. For
each geological group, engineering and statistical analyses were
applied to study the correlation between flowback data and well
completion through traditional regression methods. Important fac-
tors considered to affect flowback-water recovery efficiency
include the number of hydraulic-fracture stages, lateral length,
vertical depth, proppant mass applied, proppant size, fracture-fluid
volume applied, treatment rate, and shut-in time. The total prop-
pant mass, proppant size, and shut-in time have a relatively large
influence on volumetric flowback performance.
The new results enable one to estimate flowback volume in a
spatial domain on the basis of the known geological conditions
and completion parameters, and lead to a better understanding of
flowback behaviors in Marcellus shale. This also helps industry
manage flowback water and optimize production operations.
Introduction
The Marcellus formation—a Devonian, organic-rich black shale
covering an area of approximately 95,000 sq miles in the Appala-
chian Basin of the northeastern part of the US—has proved to be
a major resource for economically recoverable natural gas and liq-
uid-hydrocarbon condensate, with approximately one-third of gas
in place estimated to be recoverable (Zammerilli 2010). The Mar-
cellus ranges in thickness from an average of 50 to 200 ft; the
depth of the Marcellus ranges from 4,000 to 8,500 ft. In most
areas, the Marcellus is overlain by the Hamilton shale member of
the Hamilton Group and underlain by the Onondaga limestone
formation (Sweeney et al. 1986; Carter 2007). Marcellus shale
matrix is composed primarily of quartz, clay, calcite, and organic
material, with common minor constituents including pyrite and
Copyright V
C 2016 Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper (SPE 173364) was accepted for presentation at the SPE Hydraulic Fracturing
Technology Conference, The Woodlands, Texas, USA, 3–5 February 2015, and revised for
publication. Original manuscript received for review 4 March 2015. Revised manuscript
received for review 12 August 2015. Paper peer approved 12 October 2015.
May 2016 SPE Production & Operations
ID: jaganm Time: 20:54 I Path: S:/PO##/Vol00000/160002/Comp/APPFile/SA-PO##160002
Total Pages: 14
chlorite (Cunningham et al. 2012). Porosity of the shale matrix is
typically in the range of 0.5 to 5%, with the highest reported poros-
ity of 9% in West Virginia (Lee et al. 2010). However, the matrix
pore spaces in Marcellus are poorly connected; thus, the successful
extraction of natural gas depends largely on the fractures. Matrix
permeability is on the order of 104 md and strongly stress depend-
ent (Soeder 1988); the permeability decreases by nearly 70% by
doubling the net stress (Soeder 1988). Because net stress will
increase as pore pressure decreases during gas production, effec-
tive matrix permeability can be expected to decrease through the
period of hydrocarbon recovery. Organic content ranges from 2 to
14%, but averages 3 to 6% in most areas (Cunningham et al. 2012).
The organic matter is primarily composed of Type II algal marine
kerogen (Ward 2010). Thickness, thermal evolution and maturity
of organic content, and formation-pressure gradients vary signifi-
cantly. Thermal maturity generally increases from the west (where
the reservoir is oily) to the east (where the reservoir produces natu-
ral gas with no oil) (Zammerilli 2010; Bruner and Smosna 2010).
The thermal maturity, as estimated using vitrinite reflectance (Ro),
is low in the southwestern part of West Virginia and high in the
northeastern part. Generally speaking, the northeast central spatial
subset is thick and the southwest part is thin. The Marcellus is
underpressured to the southwest, and it has been postulated to be
normal to potentially overpressured to the northeast, with a transi-
tional area in between.
Horizontal wells with multistage fracture treatments are an
established and economically viable method to enable economic
gas-flow rate from gas shale formations. These massive hydrau-
lic-fracture treatments are implemented by injecting millions of
gallons of water per well into the formation though multiple
stages, in which each stage has three to five perforation clusters to
create a complex hydraulic-fracture network. However, the frac-
ture fluid injected into the formation will not be recovered fully
during flowback periods. For Marcellus shale wells in northeast-
ern West Virginia, the range of the recovered fracture fluid within
3 weeks is from 2 to 26%. The hydraulic-fracture fluid may be
trapped or imbibed into the formation or natural fractures because
of the high capillary pressure, and the water recovered to the sur-
face has high salt concentration (Blauch et al. 2009; Haluszczak
et al. 2013; Barbot et al. 2013; Carter et al. 2013), which has
caused concerns in terms of formation damage, fracture damage,
and environment. Therefore, it is desired to know what factor con-
trols the flowback recovery and how much fracture fluid could be
recovered with a development plan before making a decision.
Though fracture-fluid flowback is important for post-fracture
evaluation and disposal management, work on flowback-water
characterization and predictive model development has been rela-
tively limited. Some researchers have simulated fracture-fluid vol-
umetric recovery from shale gas reservoirs during flowback
periods (Clarkson and Williams-Kovacs 2013; Alkouh et al.
2014; Bertoncello et al. 2014). These studies predict water and
gas production as a function of stimulation details, properties of a
two-phase (water and gas) system, the hydraulic-fracture half-
length, and fracture permeability with different physical assump-
tions for fracture geometry and flow regimes. Such modeling
approaches are limited in their ability to capture the full complex-
ity of these systems. Furthermore, challenges in adequately repre-
senting the uncertainty and variability in these systems by
modeling alone suggest that complementing modeling with data-
driven approaches may aid in developing important insights.
133
 PO173364 DOI: 10.2118/173364-PA Date: 5-May-16
Table 1—Summary of mean and data range for stimulation completion parameters and production.
Data-mining approaches can avoid issues of physical assump-
tions, such as those made from the preceding simulation studies,
and extract the implicit and interesting information from real pro-
duction data in a large database. Data-mining approaches have
been applied extensively for gas/oil-production analysis in shale
reservoirs (Centurion 2011; Centurion et al. 2012, 2013; Cunning-
ham et al. 2012; Esmaili et al. 2012a, 2012b; LaFollette and Hol-
comb 2011; LaFollette et al. 2012; Shelley et al. 2008), but such
studies were found rarely in the literature for fracture-fluid-flow-
back analysis. Lan et al. (2014) performed experimental analysis
for fracture-fluid flowback in shale reservoirs on the basis of sam-
ples from limited wells from shale members of the Horn River
Basin and Montney tight gas formation. The controlling factors
for fracture-fluid-flowback volume change have not been identi-
fied clearly by previous published research, and correlations
between fracture-fluid flowback and geology, completion, and
stimulation parameters have not been investigated adequately.
This paper is focused on assessing trends in flowback-recovery
efficiency through data-mining techniques. The analysis includes
two parts: univariate engineering analysis used to identify correla-
tions of completion and stimulation parameters that impact flow-
back-recovery efficiency and a multiple-variable linear-regression
model with variable-importance calculation used to identify the
controlling engineering factor that impacts flowback-recovery ef-
ficiency. In the second part, the effects from geological conditions
were examined by principal-component analysis (PCA) and clus-
tering analysis. The analysis procedures and methods used in this
paper are discussed in the following section.
Data Gathering, Screening, and Grouping
Details of the data-set development and screening criteria are pro-
vided in Zhou et al. (2014). Completion parameters detailed in the
database include proppant type, proppant mass, fracture-fluid type,
fracture-fluid volume, vertical depth, lateral length, number of
stages, number of perforation shots, perforation intervals, treatment
rate, average treatment pressure, maximum treatment pressure, in-
stantaneous shut-in pressure (ISIP), acid volume, and shut-in time.
Because of insufficient data in some wells, only the fracture-fluid
volume, proppant mass, vertical depth, lateral length, treatment
rate, number of stages, and shut-in time were considered as varia-
bles for this study. Table 1 shows the mean and ranges for each of
those parameters over the entire spatial domain and in each geologi-
cal group. The shut-in time is defined herein as the number of days
between end of treatment and beginning of flowback. Some wells
134
ID: jaganm Time: 20:54 I Path: S:/PO##/Vol00000/160002/Comp/APPFile/SA-PO##160002
Stage: Page: 134 Total Pages: 14
with long, calculated shut-in times may be attributed to a delay in
well connection to production line. Volumetric flowback-recovery
efficiency was calculated as cumulative recovered fracture-fluid
volume after 3 weeks divided by total injected fracture-fluid vol-
ume. Three weeks was used because of the availability of data, but
3-weeks cutoff could be referred to the work of Barbot et al. (2013)
and Seales (2015), as well. According to Seales’ model, approxi-
mately 80% of recoverable fracture fluid was flowed back within
the first 3 weeks. The conclusive remarks achieved in this paper are
based on 3 weeks of flowback data. As longer periods of flowback
data are collected in the future, this analysis could be expanded to
develop more-comprehensive insights. Finally, it should be noted
that all the wells in this paper are multistaged horizontal wells
stimulated by slickwater fracturing.
Before proceeding with data analysis, the outliers were
detected by use of the Mahalanobis distance approach (Mahalano-
bis 1936), which is defined as the distance between a data point
and the centroid of a multidimensional space, with the centroid
determined as a function of the mean values of all variables.
Points with the Mahalanobis (1936) distance larger than a certain
cutoff were treated as outliers. The outliers are assumed to bias
the analysis result and were removed from the data set. After this
screening, the data set decreased from 187 to 173 observations.
However, the 173 wells retained after this screening were further
scrutinized to identify the set of wells most appropriate for use in
this analysis. Some wells calculated shut-in periods of negative
duration, those observations were removed. As a result, the total
well count is reduced to 86; all the following analyses are based
on those 86 wells.
According to the thermal-maturity (indicated by vitrinite re-
flectance Ro) distribution and the formation-thickness (h) distribu-
tion (Bruner and Smosna 2010), we divided the study domain into
four groups (Fig. 1). The data set was first partitioned as Group A
and Group B by Ro ¼ 1.6. The green region, Group A, represents
the region in which Ro falls between 1.0 to 1.6, and the production
should contain natural gas and oil together. The yellow region,
Group B, represents the region in which Ro ranges between 1.6
and 2.5, and production is expected to contain natural gas only.
The white area is not considered in this study. Group A is then
partitioned into Group A1 and Group A2 by Ro value equal to 1.3,
above which a large amount of gas is known to be generated.
Group B is subpartitioned into Group B1 and B2 by h ¼ 80 ft. The
detailed partition rules and principles are discussed in Zhou et al.
(2014). Table 2 lists the number of wells and the thermal-maturity
range and thickness range in each geological group.
May 2016 SPE Production & Operations
 PO173364 DOI: 10.2118/173364-PA Date: 5-May-16 Stage: Page: 135 Total Pages: 14

W E

S Marshall

Monongalia
Wetzel A2
Tyler A1 Marion Preston
Taylor
Doddridge

Harrison
Barbour
B1

B2
Upshur

Allegheny Front

0 25 50 100

Miles

Fig. 1—Groups A1, A2, B1, B2 distribution on the map of West Virginia. Data set was first partitioned as Groups A and B by
Ro 5 1.6; Group A was subpartitioned by Ro 5 1.3; Group B was subpartitioned by h 5 80 ft.

Data-Analysis Methodology cient of determination (R2) was obtained from multivariable

Fig. 2 shows a schematic illustrating the analysis procedures of
this paper. The work flow consists of four major parts that are
marked with different colors. First, the data set was constructed by
collecting the data from both public and confidential sources,
including eight parameters, and then partitioned into four geologi-
cal groups, as discussed in the Data Gathering, Screening, and
Grouping section. In a third step, bivariate analysis was performed
on the data. A fourth step was a more-complex and -comprehen-
sive multiple-parameter analysis. Results of each part of this work
flow are discussed for both geological and engineering parameters.
Regression Analysis. Regression analysis was applied to analyze
the relationship between two or more variables, with the response
(in this case flowback recovery) represented by the predictor(s)
(e.g., lateral length) using a function. In this analysis, the coeffi-
Table 2—Thermal-maturity (Ro) and formation-thickness (h) ranges
in four groups.
regression. The coefficient of multiple determinations, denoted by
R2, is defined as in Eq. 1. R2 is the ratio of the sum of the regres-
sion error to the sum of the total error, which represents the pro-
portion of the behavior of the dependent variable that is explained
by independent variables. SSTO (total sum of squares) measures
the total variation, which is calculated as the sum of the square of
the difference between observation value (Yi) and its correspond-
ing mean value ðY i Þ. SSR is the regression sum of squares, which
is calculated as the sum of the square of the difference between
the mean value ðY i Þ and the fitted value ðY^i Þ.
X
SSR ðY i  Y^i Þ2
2
R ¼ ¼X : . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ð1Þ
SSTO ðYi  Y i Þ2
In the case of variable independence, the R2 value from the
multivariable regression equals the sum of r2 values from each
univariate regression result. Because model variables are likely
correlated in some way, the sum of R2 from univariate regression
does not effectively describe the contribution of all variables to
the predicted function, and a means of assigning relative impor-
tance of contributing regressors to a linear regression must be
selected. The method of Lindeman, Merenda, and Gold (LMG)
(Lindeman et al. 1980), which assigns importance on the basis of

May 2016 SPE Production & Operations 135

ID: jaganm Time: 20:54 I Path: S:/PO##/Vol00000/160002/Comp/APPFile/SA-PO##160002

 PO173364 DOI: 10.2118/173364-PA Date: 5-May-16 Stage: Page: 136 Total Pages: 14

Start

Data Collected and Screen

3-week Frac Lateral Pump Stage Shut-in

Proppant Depth
water Fluid Length Rate Number Time

Data Group by Geo Conditions

Thermal Maturity (Ro = 1.6)

A (52) B (34)

Thermal Maturity (Ro = 1.3) Formation Thickness (h = 1.3)

A1 (28) A2 (24) B1 (17) B2 (17)

Geological Parameter Bivariate Analysis Engineering Parameter

Geological Parameter Multiple Parameter Engineering Parameter

Analysis

PCA MLR
K-Means LMG
Finish

Fig. 2—Work flow of this paper.

averaging sequential sums of squares over all orderings of regres-
sors (predictors), is commonly applied to observational data prob-
lems such as that considered herein. In this context, “sequential”
means that the regressors are entered into the model in the order
in which they are listed. Division of sequential sums of squares by
the total response sum of squares yields sequential R2 contribu-
tions. This method takes into account the dependence on order-
ings by averaging over orderings, using simple unweighted
averages. Eq. 2 shows the corresponding function, where lmg(xk)
is the variable importance of xk calculated by the LMG method,
seqR2 is the sequential sum of squares, n is the data size, p is the
number of predictors, and S is the data set excluding xk:
1
lmgðxk Þ ¼
p!
X components and perform analysis on the basis of these compo-
2
Sðx1 ;…xp Þnðxk Þ nðSÞ!½ p  nðSÞ  1!seqR ½ðxk ÞjS:
Clustering Analysis. Clustering analysis is used to identify sub-
groups (clusters) in a data set by partitioning objects with similar
characteristics. Because it is often applied to problems in which
the number of groups is not known a priori, many clustering
approaches prescribe criteria to objectively define what it means
for two or more observations to be similar or different. Commonly
used clustering algorithms include K-means, hierarchical cluster-
ing, spectral clustering, and density-based clustering. In this
study, the K-means clustering method is applied to partition the
set of 86 screened observations into subgroups by stimulation and
completion parameters because of its simplicity and efficiency. In
K-means clustering, the data are initially randomly assigned to K
clusters, and centroids representing the mean of all variables in
each cluster are calculated. Distances between each observation
and the centroid are calculated and summed. The final clustering
result is achieved when the sum of the distances between
observed value and centroid in each cluster is at minimum after
several iterations. This optimization process can be summarized
by Eq. 3, where jCkj means the number of clusters and (xij – xi0 j)
is the Euclidean distance between every two observations in a
k cluster:
X 
K 1 X Xp 2
minimizeC1 …Ck i;i0 2C ðx ij  x i0jÞ :
k¼1 jC j
k
k j¼1
                   ð3Þ
PCA. PCA refers to the processes that compute the principal
   ð2Þ nents in understanding the data pattern. The principal components
are a relatively small subset of the original set of variables, and
collectively explain the majority of variance of the data set. The
generation of principal components on the basis of the theory of
matrix decomposition and eigenvector is to find a low-dimen-
sional set of features of the data set. The PCA can be used as
dimension reduction for visualization, such as 2D visualization.
This function is applied in this study in combination with the clus-
tering method.
Results and Discussion
Single-Parameter Study. A set of simple univariate analyses
was performed to examine the correlation of each parameter with
the cumulative water recovery within a 3-week flowback to find
potentially statistically significant correlations between the 3-

136 May 2016 SPE Production & Operations

ID: jaganm Time: 20:54 I Path: S:/PO##/Vol00000/160002/Comp/APPFile/SA-PO##160002

 PO173364 DOI: 10.2118/173364-PA Date: 5-May-16 Stage: Page: 137 Total Pages: 14

10 12
8.75
9.71
10
8

3-Week Flowback (%)

3-Week Flowback (%)
7.76
8
6
4.46 6
4
4

2
2

0 0
Group A Group B Group B1 Group B2

Fig. 3—Three-week-flowback recovery between Group A (52 Fig. 4—Three-week-flowback recovery between Group B1 (17
cases) and Group B (34 cases); the flowback recovery increased cases) and Group B2 (17 cases); the flowback recovery
as Ro increased. decreased as h increased.

week fracture-fluid flowback and well geologic, stimulation, and Group B supports the decision to define this geological boundary.
completion features. Fig. 4 shows the average 3-week-flowback recovery within Group
B. It seems that as the thickness increases, the flowback recovery
decreases. To further understand the relationship between forma-
Geological Parameter. The difference in geological setting could tion thicknesses and flowback recovery, the stimulation and com-
have significant effects on flowback performance. Thermal matu- pletion parameters need to be considered.
rity, used as a practical index for the hydrocarbon composition and
hydrocarbon phases in the reservoir, is important for the 3-week-
flowback evaluation. In addition to thermal maturity, formation Engineering Parameter. Stimulation operational choices were
thickness also significantly impacts 3-week-flowback performance. also analyzed to explore which engineering parameters have sig-
Fig. 3 shows a comparison of the results on 3-week-flowback nificant influence on the flowback recovery (magnitude of correla-
recovery in Groups A and B. In Group A, the average 3-week- tion as absolute value), and the type of correlation (positive or
flowback recovery is 4.46%, while in Group B, the average is negative). Fig. 5 shows results of that univariate correlation anal-
8.75%. This relatively large difference between Group A and ysis; the coefficients of correlations (r) between single-engineering

30 30 30
Recovery Efficiency (%)

Recovery Efficiency (%)

Recovery Efficiency (%)

20 20 20

10 10 10

0 0 0
0 2 4 0 5 10 0 5,000 10,000
Total Fracture Fluid (bbl) ×105 Total Proppant (lbm) ×106 Vertical Depth (ft)

30 30 30
Recovery Efficiency (%)

Recovery Efficiency (%)

Recovery Efficiency (%)

20
20 20

10
10 10
0
0 0
6,000 8,000 10,000 0 20 40 50 100 150
Lateral Length (ft) Number of Stages Treatment Rate (bbl/min)

30
Recovery Efficiency (%)

20

10

0 100 200
Shut-In Time (days)

Fig. 5—Analysis of single-engineering parameter on 3-week-flowback recovery; shut-in time has a negative correlation with flow-
back recovery (86 cases).

May 2016 SPE Production & Operations 137

ID: jaganm Time: 20:54 I Path: S:/PO##/Vol00000/160002/Comp/APPFile/SA-PO##160002

 PO173364 DOI: 10.2118/173364-PA Date: 5-May-16
Table 3—Correlation coefficient and P-value between completion parameters and flowback recovery through 3 weeks post-stimulation.
Table 4—Coefficients of multiple regression results for each group.
parameters (total fracture-fluid volume, proppant mass, vertical
depth, lateral length, number of stages, treatment rate, shut-in time)
and 3-week-flowback recovery are presented in Table 3.
Those results show that the shut-in time has the largest coeffi-
cient of correlation compared with other parameters, followed by
lateral length, with r value as –0.3828 and 0.3713, respectively.
The vertical depth, proppant mass applied, and lateral length ex-
hibit positive correlation with the 3-week-flowback recovery (i.e.,
the flowback recovery increases as those parameters increase).
Other parameters, such as fracture-fluid volume, number of frac-
ture stages, treatment rate, and shut-in time, have a negative rela-
tionship with the 3-week-flowback recovery (i.e., the flowback
recovery decreases as these parameters increase). Fracture-fluid
volume, proppant mass, vertical depth, and number of stages have
P-values larger than 0.05, and therefore are determined to not
have a statistically significant relationship with the flowback re-
covery. All of those correlations are weak (even the ones with P-
value greater than 0.05). Still, this analysis provides some insights
into the general trend between each stimulation or completion pa-
rameter and the 3-week-flowback recovery of Marcellus shale in
northeastern West Virginia.
Multiple-Parameter Study. The lack of strong correlation
between the reservoir and stimulation characteristics and well
flowback recovery from univariate correlation analysis may stem
from a lack of data normalization for geologic and engineering
parameters and the colinearity among those variables. In an
attempt to overcome these issues and identify meaningful patterns
in the data, multivariable regression, LMG, PCA, and clustering
methods are considered in combination.
0.6
Shut-in time
0.5
Variable Importance
0.4
Proppant/Stage
0.3
0.53 Frac. Fluid/Stage
0.2
0.28
0.1 0.23
0
A1 A2 B1
Fig. 6—Key factors and corresponding variable-importance
value of each geological group. Shut-in time is the most impor-
tant variable for Groups A1 (28 cases) and B2 (17 cases); prop-
pant/stage is important for Group A2 (24 cases), and fracture
fluid/stage is important for Group B1 (17 cases).
138
ID: jaganm Time: 20:54 I Path: S:/PO##/Vol00000/160002/Comp/APPFile/SA-PO##160002
Stage: Page: 138 Total Pages: 14
Ranking of Engineering Parameters. To identify key engineer-
ing factors affecting the well flowback performance, multiple-
regression analysis between 3-week flowback and engineering pa-
rameters within each geological group is implemented. In this
analysis, it is assumed that within each geological group, the geo-
logical characteristics are similar and the wells are operated using
the same strategy. Because the engineering-parameter units vary
significantly between wells, a scaling process is applied before
multiple-regression analysis is performed. To make the compari-
son more meaningful, the total fracture-fluid volume, total prop-
pant mass, and lateral length are divided by the number of stages.
Table 4 shows the correlation between each factor with the water-
production performance by the sign and value of coefficient. The
multiple-regression equation for each group is shown as Eq. 4. To
overcome the range problem of flowback recovery, the logistic
transformation was applied (Kutner et al. 2004). Eq. 4 could be
applied to estimate 3-week flowback with a level of confidence,
as shown in Table 4.
0 1
B recovery C
log@ recoveryA ¼ b0 þ b1 Fracture Fluid=Stage
1
100
þ b2 Proppant Mass=Stage þ b3 Lateral Length=Stage
þ b4 Vertical Septh þ b5 Average Rate þ b6 Shut-in Time:
                   ð4Þ
For each geological group, the variable importance was calcu-
lated as shown in Appendix A. The factor of greatest importance
for each of the four defined geological subgroups and the corre-
sponding variable-importance value are shown in Fig. 6. The
most important engineering factor for Groups A1 and B2 is the
shut-in time; for Group A2 and Group B2, the key factors are
Shut-in time proppant mass/stage and fracture-fluid volume/stage, respectively.
Proppant/stage To further understand what causes the different dominated en-
Fracture gineering-factor results, the proppant size and proppant concentra-
fluid/stage tion of each geological group were studied. The proppant-size
data that were based on a single-well scale are insufficient to per-
form data-mining analysis. In each group, the number of wells
with available proppant-size information is 15, 0, 25, and 12.
Shut-in time However, different proppant size in each group may explain why
different engineering factors dominate the flowback recovery. For
Groups A1 and B2, the proppant size is 100, 40/70, and 30/50.
0.21
For Group B1, the proppant size is 100, 40/70, 30/50, and 20/40.
There is no information available for Group A2. In other words,
Groups A1 and B2 share the same proppant size, and Group B1
B2
contains larger proppant size as 20/40. Although not directly con-
sidered in the multiple-regression analysis, proppant concentra-
tion is another factor significantly impacting fracture
conductivity. Figs. 7 through 10 show the proppant concentration
in each geological group. The proppant concentration is similar
among Groups A1, B1, and B2.
May 2016 SPE Production & Operations
 PO173364 DOI: 10.2118/173364-PA Date: 5-May-16 Stage: Page: 139 Total Pages: 14

40% 40%
A1 36.11% A2 37.14%
35% 35%
30% 27.78% 30%
Frequency 25% 25%

Frequency
22.22%
20% 20% 17.14% 17.14%
15% 14.29%
15%
10% 10%
5.56% 5.56%
5% 2.78% 2.78% 5% 2.86% 2.86% 2.86% 2.86% 2.86%
0% 0%
0.80 0.93 1.07 1.20 1.33 1.47 1.60 0.40 0.53 0.67 0.80 0.93 1.07 1.20 1.33 1.47
Proppant Concentration (lbm/gal) Proppant Concentration (lbm/gal)

Fig. 7—Proppant-concentration distribution for Group A1 (28 Fig. 8—Proppant-concentration distribution for Group A2 (24
cases). Approximately 86% of wells in this group with prop- cases). Approximately 17% of wells in this group with small
pant-concentration ranges from 1.2 to 1.47 lbm/gal. proppant-concentration of 0.4 lbm/gal, which is not observed in
the other three groups.
35%
B1 31.03%
30% 35%
B2 30.43%
25% 30%
26.09% 26.09%
20.69% 20.69%
Frequency

20% 25%

Frequency
15% 20%

10% 15%
6.90% 6.90% 6.90%
5% 3.45% 3.45% 10%
4.35% 4.35% 4.35% 4.35%
0% 5%
0.67 0.80 0.93 1.07 1.20 1.33 1.47 1.60 0.00%
0%
Proppant Concentration (lbm/gal) 0.53 0.67 0.80 0.93 1.07 1.20 1.33 1.47
Proppant Concentration (lbm/gal)
Fig. 9—Proppant-concentration distribution for Group B1 (17
cases). Approximately 72% of wells in this group with prop- Fig. 10—Proppant-concentration distribution for Group B2 (17
pant-concentration ranges from 1.2 to 1.47 lbm/gal. cases). Approximately 82% of wells in this group with prop-
pant-concentration ranges from 1.2 to 1.47 lbm/gal.
Therefore, the only difference among Groups A1, B1, and B2
is proppant size. According to the proppant size, Groups A1 and In Group A2, the concentration distribution of applied prop-
B2 show characteristics of typical slickwater fracturing to carry pant is smaller than that in the other three geological groups. In
proppant of small size. Slickwater fractures typically generate other words, with the same fracture-fluid volume, the total prop-
longer hydraulic fractures with larger matrix-fracture contact area pant mass applied would be less in Group A2 as compared with
and lower fracture conductivity. For those wells, flowback is most the other three geological groups. Because proppant is required to
sensitive to shut-in time. Longer shut-in times may result in more hold open stimulated fractures, insufficient proppant loading may
fracture-fluid imbibition in matrix or natural fracture and return of result in increased fracture closure during flowback period and
less to the surface. reduction in water-recovery efficiency. Relatively low proppant-
Larger-sized proppant, such as 20/40-mesh proppant (420 to mass loading is, therefore, proposed to be the dominating factor
840 mm), applied in Group B1 may result in greater fracture width influencing flowback performance in Group A2.
and higher fracture conductivity near the wellbore (Ahn et al.
2014). With good fracture conductivity, fracture fluid could flow
easily to the wellbore—such a mechanism may be supported by Geological Parameter. The effect of geological properties on
data shown in Table 1. The volumetric flowback recovery may be 3-week-flowback recovery was also examined using PCA and
more directly affected by the fracture-fluid volume per stage K-means clustering methods to normalize the effects from stimu-
rather than shut-in time. lation and completion parameters and generate different clusters
of similar stimulation- and completion-parameter values.
5 The effect of thermal maturity was first examined. PCA and
clustering methods were applied on Group A wells, which share
4
3.87 the same formation-thickness range, but have different thermal
3-Week Flowback (%)

maturity. The PCA and clustering results are shown in Appendix

2.80
B. The 3-week-flowback recovery from Groups A1 and A2 was
3 compared in one of the clusters. The flowback-comparison result
is shown in Fig. 11. There are eight wells picked from Group A1
2 and five wells picked from Group A2. Those wells share similar
formation thickness and engineering parameters (fracture fluid,
1 proppant, vertical depth, lateral length, number of stages, treat-
ment rate, shut-in time), but different Ro ranges. The Ro of Group
0
A1 is smaller than that of Group A2 (i.e., Group A2 has a rela-
A1 A2 tively high thermal evolution). As a result, the 3-week-flowback
recovery of Group A1 is slightly smaller than that of Group A2.
Fig. 11—Compared results between Groups A1 (8 cases) and The difference may result from the multiphase flow. In Group A1,
A2 (5 cases); flowback recovery increased as Ro increased. more condensate will be produced in the formation and may

May 2016 SPE Production & Operations 139

ID: jaganm Time: 20:55 I Path: S:/PO##/Vol00000/160002/Comp/APPFile/SA-PO##160002

 PO173364 DOI: 10.2118/173364-PA Date: 5-May-16
12
9.60
10
3-Week Flowback (%)
7.42
8
6 slickwater fracturing to carry proppant of small size and gener-
4 ductivity. For those wells, flowback is most sensitive to shut-in
2 imbibition to the matrix.
0 ume/stage. This difference may be caused by the different prop-
B1 B2
Fig. 12—Compared results between Groups B1 (11 cases) and
B2 (10 cases); flowback recovery decreased as h increased.
inhibit the fracture-fluid flowback in response to capillary pres-
sure and relative permeability (Alfi et al. 2014). As the saturation
of the condensate increases in the formation, the relative perme-
ability of condensate increases and relative permeability of frac-
ture fluid decreases. Therefore, the flow of fracture fluid may be
affected by multiphase effects. Some other factors, such as clay
content, which is not available in this study, may be the cause of
lower flowback recovery in Group A1 than in Group A2. Further
study is required.
The effect of formation thickness was then considered. On the
basis of geological grouping, Groups B1 and B2 have the same Ro
and different thickness. To eliminate the effect of engineering
attributes on wells in Groups B1 and B2, we now pick wells in
Groups B1 and B2 that share similar engineering characteristics
by use of PCA and K-means. PCA transfers the seven engineering
attributes—fracture-fluid volume, proppant mass, lateral length,
vertical depth, number of stages, shut-in time, and treatment
rate—into two principal components, as shown in Appendix B.
The K-means method was applied on the two principal compo-
nents and identified the wells in Groups B1 and B2 that have simi-
lar engineering characteristics. As shown in Fig. 12, there are 11
wells selected from Group B1 and 10 wells selected from Group
B2. Those wells share similar thermal maturity and engineering
parameters. The 3-week-flowback recovery in Group B2 is lower
than the production in Group B1, a difference that may be attrib-
uted to a difference in formation thickness, which may be
explained as the fracture surface area. The thicker formation may
have larger fracture surface area than the thin formation, and with
that larger interfacial surface area, more fracture fluid will be
imbibed into the matrix by capillary pressure.
Conclusion
In this study, geological and engineering data of 187 Marcellus
wells in northeastern West Virginia were collected and classified
into two groups and four subgroups on the basis of formation
thickness and thermal maturity. Wells in Group A produce gas
and oil (or condensate), while wells in Group B yield dry gas. The
production of Group A1 contains a significantly higher fraction of
liquid hydrocarbon than that of Group A2. On the basis of our
evaluation of 3-week fracture-fluid flowback, conclusions are
as follows:
• Data screening was carried out by Mahalanobis distance analy-
sis (Mahalanobis 1936) to identify outliers in the entire data set.
Simple variable-analysis results show the general trend between
3-week-flowback recovery with other geological, stimulation,
and completion parameters. The 3-week-flowback recovery
exhibits a positive relationship with proppant mass, lateral
length, and vertical depth, and negative relationships with frac-
ture-fluid volume, number of stages, treatment rate, and shut-in
time. Correlations were developed for estimating 3-week flow-
back from wells in each of the four geological groups with dif-
ferent confidence intervals.
• On the basis of multiple-regression analysis and individual vari-
able-importance measurement in each geological group, the
140
ID: jaganm Time: 20:55 I Path: S:/PO##/Vol00000/160002/Comp/APPFile/SA-PO##160002
Stage: Page: 140 Total Pages: 14
shut-in time, proppant size, and proppant mass are found to be
the significant parameters for predicting volumes of water pro-
duced within 3 weeks after a fracture treatment.
• In Groups A1 and B2, shut-in time is relatively important com-
pared with other parameters. Groups A1 and B2 use typical
ate larger matrix-fracture contact area and lower fracture con-
time. Longer shut-in time may result in more fracture-fluid
• In Group B1, the key engineering factor is fracture-fluid vol-
pant size applied in this area. Compared with Groups A1 and
B2, larger proppants are used in Group B1, and may result in
greater fracture width and higher fracture conductivity. There-
fore, the flowback recovery is more sensitive to fracture-fluid
volume/stage. Some other factors, such as pressure difference
between pore pressure and in-situ stress, which is not available
in this study, may be the cause of low flowback recovery. Fur-
ther study is required.
• In Group A2, the key factor is proppant mass/stage in addition
to treatment rate. The proppant concentration is smaller com-
pared with the other three groups, which may result in fracture
closure during flowback period. Therefore, higher proppant
mass ensures open paths for fluid flow.
• On the basis of PCA and K-means clustering in the data base,
the effects from thermal maturity and formation thickness on 3-
week fracture-fluid flowback were examined after eliminating
the contribution from engineering parameters.
• The 3-week fracture-fluid-flowback recovery increases as the
thermal maturity increases, which may be explained as the
effect of multiphase flow. More condensate produced may in-
hibit the fracture-fluid flowback in response to capillary pres-
sure and relative permeability.
• The 3-week fracture-fluid-flowback recovery decreases as the
formation thickness increases, which may be explained in terms
of the fracture surface area. The thicker formation may have
larger fracture surface area than the thin formation, which will
imbibe more fracture fluid into the matrix by capillary pressure.
Nomenclature
C ¼ cluster containing certain number of observations,
dimensionless
h ¼ thickness, ft
n ¼ data size, dimensionless
p ¼ number of predictors, dimensionless
r ¼ coefficient of correlation, dimensionless
r2 ¼ coefficient of determination from specific predictor,
dimensionless
Ro ¼ vitrinite reflectance in oil, %
R2 ¼ coefficient of determination from all predictors,
dimensionless
S ¼ data set, dimensionless
SSR ¼ regression sum of squares
SSTO ¼ total sum of squares
x ¼ variable, dimensionless
Yi ¼ observation value in regression analysis
Y i ¼ mean value in regression analysis
Y^i ¼ fitted value in regression analysis
Subscripts
i ¼ specific observation
j ¼ specific feature
k ¼ specific cluster
Acknowledgments
As part of the National Energy Technology Laboratory’s Regional
University Alliance, a collaborative effort of the National Energy
Technology Laboratory, this technical effort was performed under
the RES contract DE-FE0004000.
May 2016 SPE Production & Operations
 PO173364 DOI: 10.2118/173364-PA Date: 5-May-16
Disclaimer
This project was funded in part by the US Department of Energy,
National Energy Technology Laboratory, an agency of the United
States Government, through a support contract with URS Energy
& Construction. Neither the United States Government nor any
agency thereof, nor any of their employees, nor URS Energy &
Construction, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty,
expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibil-
ity for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any informa-
tion, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that
its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference
herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by
trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not nec-
essarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or
favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof.
The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not neces-
sarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or
any agency thereof.
References
Ahn, C. H., Chang, O. C., Dilmore, R. et al. 2014. A Hydraulic Fracture
Network Propagation Model in Shale Gas Reservoirs: Parametric
Studies to Enhance the Effectiveness of Stimulation. Presented at the
SPE/AAPG/SEG Unconventional Resources Technology Conference,
Denver, 25–27 August. SPE-2014-1922580-MS. http://dx.doi.org/
10.15530/urtec-2014-1922580.
Alfi, M., Yan, B., Cao, Y. et al. 2014. Three-Phase Flow Simulation in
Ultra-Low Permeability Organic Shale via a Multiple Permeability
Approach. Presented at the SPE/AAPG/SEG Unconventional Resour-
ces Technology Conference, Denver, 25–27 August. SPE-2014-
1895733-MS. http://dx.doi.org/10.15530/urtec-2014-1895733.
Alkouh, A., McKetta, S., and Wattenbarger, R. A. 2014. Estimation of
Effective-Fracture Volume Using Water-Flowback and Production
Data for Shale-Gas Wells. J Can Pet Technol 53 (5): 290–303. SPE-
166279-PA. http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/166279-PA.
Barbot, E., Vidic, N. S., Gregory, K. B. et al. 2013. Spatial and Temporal
Correlation of Water Quality Parameters of Produced Waters from De-
vonian-Age Shale following Hydraulic Fracturing. Environ. Sci. Tech-
nol. 47 (6): 2562–2569. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es304638h.
Bertoncello, A., Wallace, J., Blyton, C. et al. 2014. Imbibition and Water
Blockage in Unconventional Reservoirs: Well-Management Im-
plications Duing Flowback and Eartly Production. SPE Res Eval &
Eng 17 (4): 497–506. SPE-167698-PA. http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/
167698-PA.
Blauch, M. E, Myers R. R., Moore, T. et al. 2009. Marcellus Shale Post-
Frac Flowback Waters—Where is All the Salt Coming from and What
are the lmplications? Presented at the SPE Eastern Regional Meeting,
Charleston, West Virginia, USA, 23–25 September. SPE-125740-MS.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/125740-MS.
Bruner, K. R. and Smosna, R. 2010. A Comparative Study of the Mississip-
pian Barnett Shale, Fort Worth Basin, and Devonian Marcellus Shale,
Appalachian Basin. Report, DOE/NETL-2011/1478, US Department of
Energy/National Energy Technology Laboratory (April 2011).
Carter, K.M. 2007. Subsurface Rock Correlation Diagram, Oil and Gas
Producing Regions of Pennsylvania. Open-file Report OFOG 07-01.1,
Pennsylvania Geological Survey, Department of Conservation and
Natural Resources, http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/topogeo/publications/
pgspub/openfile/drc/index.htm (accessed 15 October 2014).
Carter, K. E., Hakala, J. A., and Hammack, R. W. 2013. Hydraulic Frac-
turing and Organic Compounds—Uses, Disposal and Challenges. Pre-
sented at the SPE Eastern Regional Meeting, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
USA, 20–22 August. SPE-165692-MS. http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/
165692-MS.
Centurion, S. 2011. Eagle Ford Shale: A Multi-Stage Hydraulic Fractur-
ing, Completion Trends and Production Outcome Study Using Practi-
cal Data Mining Techniques. Presented at the SPE Eastern Regional
Meeting, Columbus, Ohio, USA, 17–19 August. SPE-149258-MS.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/149258-MS.
Centurion, S., Cade, R., and Luo, X. 2012. Eagle Ford Shale: Hydraulic
Fracturing, Completion, and Production Trends: Part II. Presented at
the SPE Annual Techinical Conference and Exhibition, San Antonio,
May 2016 SPE Production & Operations
ID: jaganm Time: 20:55 I Path: S:/PO##/Vol00000/160002/Comp/APPFile/SA-PO##160002
Stage: Page: 141 Total Pages: 14
Texas, USA, 8–10 Octorber. SPE-158501-MS. http://dx.doi.org/
10.2118/158501-MS.
Centurion, S., Cade, R., and Luo, X. 2013. Eagle Ford Shale: Hydraulic
Fracturing, Completion and Production Trends, Part III. Presented at
the SPE Annual Techinical Conference and Exhibition, New Orleans,
30 September–2 Octorber. SPE-166494-MS. http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/
166494-MS.
Clarkson C. R. and Williams-Kovacs, J. 2013. Modeling Two-Phase
Flowback of Multifractured Horizontal Wells Completed in Shale. SPE
J. 18 (4): 795–812. SPE-162593-PA. http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/162593-
PA.
Cunningham, C. F., Cooley, L., Wozniak, G. et al. 2012. Using Multiple
Linear Regression To Model EURs of Horizontal Marcellus Shale
Wells. Presented at the SPE Eastern Regional Meeting, Lexington,
Kentucky, USA, 3–5 October. SPE-161343-MS. http://dx.doi.org/
10.2118/161343-MS.
Esmaili, S., Kalantari-Dahaghi, A., and Mohaghegh, S. D. 2012a. Modeling
and History Matching of Hydrocarbon Production from Marcellus Shale
using Data Mining and Pattern Recognition Technologies. Presented at
the SPE Eastern Regional Meeting, Lexington, Kentucky, USA, 3–5
October. SPE-161184-MS. http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/161184-MS.
Esmaili, S., Kalantari-Dahaghi, A., and Mohaghegh, S. D. 2012b. Fore-
casting, Sensitivity and Economic Analysis of Hydrocarbon Produc-
tion from Shale Plays Using Artificial Intelligence & Data Mining.
Presented at the SPE Canadian Unconventional Resource Conference,
Calgary, 30 October–1 November. SPE-162700-MS. http://dx.doi.org/
10.2118/162700-MS.
Haluszczak, L. O., Rose, A. W., and Kump, L. R. 2013. Geochemical
Evaluation of Flowback Brine from Marcellus Gas Wells in Pennsyl-
vania, USA. Applied Geochemistry 28: 55–61. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.apgeochem.2012.10.002.
Ketchen, D. J. and Shook, C. L. 1996. The Application of Cluster Analysis
in Strategic Management Research: An Analysis and Critique. Strategic
Management Journal 17 (6): 441–458. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)
1097-0266(199606)17:6<441::AID-SMJ819>3.0.CO;2-G.
Kutner, M., Nachtsheim, C., Neter, J. et al. 2004. Applied Linear Statisti-
cal Model, fifth edition. McGraw-Hill/lrwin.
LaFollette, R. F. and Holcomb, W. D. 2011. Practical Data Mining: Les-
sons Learned from the Barnett Shale of North Texas. Presented at the
SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference, The Woodlands,
Texas, USA, 24–26 January. SPE-140524-MS. http://dx.doi.org/
10.2118/140524-MS.
LaFollette, R. F., Holcomb, W. D., and Aragon, J. 2012. Practical Data
Mining: Analysis of Barnett Shale Production Results with Emphasis
on Well Completion and Fracture Stimulation. Presented at the SPE
Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference, The Woodlands, Texas,
USA, 6–8 February. SPE-152531-MS. http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/
152531-MS.
Lan, Q., Ghanbari, E., Dehghanpour H. et al. 2014. Water Loss Versus
Soaking Time: Spontaneous Imbibition in Tight Rocks. Engergy Tech-
nology 2 (12): 1033–1039. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ente.201402039.
Lee, D. S., Herman, J. D., and Elsworth, D. 2010. A Critical Evaluation of
Unconventional Gas Recovery From the Marcellus Shale, Northeast-
ern United States. Presented at the 44th US Rock Mechanics Sympo-
sium and 5th US-Canada Rock Mechanics Symposium, Salt Lake
City, Utah, USA, 27–30 June. ARMA-10-440.
Lindeman, R. H., Merenda, P. F., and Gold, R. Z. 1980. Introduction to
Bivariate and Multivariate Analysis, first edition. Dallas, Texas: Scott,
Foresman.
Mahalanobis, P. C. 1936. On the generalised distance in statistics.
Proceedings of the National Institute of Sciences of India 2 (1): 49–55.
Rousseeuw, P. J. 1987. Silhouettes: A Graphical Aid to the Interpretation
and Validation of Cluster Analysis. Journal of Computational and
Applied Mathematics 20: 53–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0377-0427
(87)90125-7.
Seales, M. 2015. Analysis of Fracture Fluid Cleanup and Long-Term Re-
covery in Shale Gas Reservoirs. PhD dissertation, Penn State Univer-
sity, State College, Pennsylvania (August 2015).
Shelley, B., Grieser, B., Johnson, B. J. et al. 2008. Data Analysis of Bar-
nett Shale Completions. SPE J. 13 (3): 366–374. SPE-100674-PA.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/100674-PA.
141
 PO173364 DOI: 10.2118/173364-PA Date: 5-May-16 Stage: Page: 142 Total Pages: 14

Soeder, D. J. 1988. Porosity and Permeability of Eastern Devonian Gas
Shale. SPE Form Eval 3 (1): 116–124. SPE-15213-PA. http://
dx.doi.org/10.2118/15213-PA.
Sweeney, J., Filer, J., Patchen, D. et al. 1986. Stratigraphy and Petroleum
Production of Middle and Upper Devonian Shales, Northwestern West
Virginia. Presented at the SPE Unconventional Gas Technology Sym-
posium, Louisville, Kentucky, USA, 18–21 May. SPE-15222-MS.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/15222-MS.
Ward, J. A. 2010. Kerogen Density in the Marcellus Shale. Presented at
the SPE Unconventional Gas Conference, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
USA, 23–25 February. SPE-131767-MS. http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/
131767-MS.
Zammerilli, A. M. 2010. Projecting the Economic Impact of Marcellus Shale
Gas Development in West Virginia: A Preliminary Analysis Using Public
Available Data. Report, DOE/NETL-402/033110, US Department of
Energy/National Energy Technology Laboratory (31 March 2010).
Zhou, Q., Dilmore, R., Kleit, A. et al. 2014. Evaluating Gas Production
Performances in Marcellus Using Data Mining Technologies. Journal
of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 20: 109–120. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jngse.2014.06.014.

Appendix A
Figs. A-1 through A-4 show the order of the variable importance for the four geological groups.
0.6
A1
0.5
Variable Importance

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
Fracture Proppant Lateral Vertical Average Shut-in
Fluid/Stage Mass/Stage Length/Stage Depth Rate Time

Fig. A-1—Rank of variable importance of each engineering factor in Group A1 (28 cases). Shut-in time is the most-important engi-
neering factor.
0.3
A2
0.25
Variable Importance

0.2

0.15

0.1

0.05

0
Fracture Proppant Lateral Vertical Depth Average Rate Shut-in Time
Fluid/Stage Mass/Stage Length/Stage

Fig. A-2—Rank of variable importance of each engineering factor in Group A2 (24 cases). Proppant mass/stage is the most-impor-
tant engineering factor.
0.25
B1

0.2
Variable Importance

0.15

0.1

0.05

0
Fracture Proppant Lateral Vertical Depth Average Rate Shut-in Time
Fluid/Stage Mass/Stage Length/Stage

Fig. A-3—Rank of variable importance of each engineering factor in Group B1 (17 cases). Fracture fluid/stage is the most-important
engineering factor.

142 May 2016 SPE Production & Operations

ID: jaganm Time: 20:55 I Path: S:/PO##/Vol00000/160002/Comp/APPFile/SA-PO##160002

 PO173364 DOI: 10.2118/173364-PA Date: 5-May-16
0.25
0.2
Variable Importance
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
Fracture Proppant
Fluid/Stage Mass/Stage
Fig. A-4—Rank of variable importance of each engineering factor in Group B2 (17 cases). Shut-in time is the most-important engi-
neering factor.
Appendix B
PCA is a technique for reducing the dimension of an n  p data
matrix X. The first principal component direction of the data is
that along which the observations vary the most. The principal
component of a set of features X1, X2, …, Xp is the normalized lin-
ear combination of the features, as shown in Eq. B-1, where / is
the loadings of the principal component:
Z1 ¼ /11 X1 þ /21 X2 þ … þ /p1 Xp : . . . . . . . . . . . . ðB-1Þ
The PCA method is implemented here to replace the seven varia-
bles (fracture-fluid volume, proppant mass, vertical depth, lateral
length, number of stages, treatment rate, and shut-in time) that are
linearly correlated with flowback-water volume as two linearly
uncorrelated variables (principal components), referenced herein
as pcaComp1 and pcaComp2. Each component is the linear com-
bination of certain coefficients (principal component loading vec-
tors) from the seven variables, as shown in Eqs. B-2 and B-3. The
coefficients for pcaComp1 and pcaComp2 are shown in Table B-
1 and the corresponding clustering results are shown in Figs. B-1
and B-2. The best choice for the number of clusters is made
Table B-1—Principal-component loading vectors.
May 2016 SPE Production & Operations
ID: jaganm Time: 20:55 I Path: S:/PO##/Vol00000/160002/Comp/APPFile/SA-PO##160002
Stage: Page: 143 Total Pages: 14
B2
Lateral Vertical Depth Average Rate Shut-in Time
Length/Stage
depending on the shape (clustering) of the distribution of points,
using analysis of the elbow method and the silhouette method.
The elbow method (Ketchen and Shook 1996) is to compute the
percentage of the variance explained by a certain number of clus-
ters. The silhouette method (Rousseeuw 1987) provides a measure
of how closely each datum within a cluster matches that cluster,
and how poorly it matches adjacent clusters, providing a value of
near 1 for data fitting well into a cluster and a value near –1 for
data fitting poorly into a cluster.
pcaComp1 ¼ /11  Fracture Fluid Volume þ /21
 Proppant þ /31  Depth þ /41  Lateral Length þ /51
Number of Stages þ /61  Trearment Rate þ /71
 Shut-in Time:                       ðB-2Þ
pcaComp2 ¼ /12  Fracture Fluid Volume þ /22
 Proppant þ /32  Depth þ /42  Lateral Length þ /52
 Number of Stages þ /62  Trearment Rate þ /72
 Shut-in Time:                       ðB-3Þ
143
 PO173364 DOI: 10.2118/173364-PA Date: 5-May-16 Stage: Page: 144 Total Pages: 14

K-Means Clustering K-Means Clustering

Results with K = 2 Results with K = 3

2
1

1
pcaComp2

pcaComp2
0

0
–1

–1
–2

–2
–3

–3
–3 –2 –1 0 1 2 3 –3 –2 –1 0 1 2 3
pcaComp1 pcaComp1

K-Means Clustering K-Means Clustering

Results with K = 4 Results with K = 5

2
2

1
1

pcaComp2
pcaComp2

0
0

–1
–1

–2
–2

–3
–3

–3 –2 –1 0 1 2 3 –3 –2 –1 0 1 2 3
pcaComp1 pcaComp1

Fig. B-1—Clustering results for geologic Group A (52 cases). Each point is one well, and each circle is one cluster.

144 May 2016 SPE Production & Operations

ID: jaganm Time: 20:55 I Path: S:/PO##/Vol00000/160002/Comp/APPFile/SA-PO##160002

 PO173364 DOI: 10.2118/173364-PA Date: 5-May-16 Stage: Page: 145 Total Pages: 14

K-Means Clustering K-Means Clustering

Results with K = 2 Results with K = 3

2
1

1
pcaComp2

pcaComp2
0

0
–1

–1
–2

–2
–3

–3
–4 –2 0 2 –4 –2 0 2
pcaComp1 pcaComp1

K-Means Clustering K-Means Clustering

Results with K = 4 Results with K = 5
2

2
1

1
pcaComp2
pcaComp2

0
–1

–1
–2

–2
–3

–3

–4 –2 0 2 –4 –2 0 2
pcaComp1 pcaComp1

Fig. B-2—Clustering results for geologic Group B (34 cases). Each point is one well, and each circle is one cluster.

Qiumei Zhou is a PhD-degree candidate in the Energy and
Mineral Engineering Department at Pennsylvania State Univer-
sity. Her research interests include numerical simulation and
data-mining analysis for unconventional reservoirs. Zhou holds
a BS degree in petroleum geology from Chengdu University of
Technology (China) and an MS degree in petroleum and nat-
ural gas engineering from Pennsylvania State University.
Robert Dilmore is a research environmental engineer in the US
Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Labora-
tory, Office of Research and Development, working on topics
related to characterizing technical and environmental per-
formance of complex engineered geologic systems. His
recent research foci have included CO2 enhanced recovery
and storage in conventional and unconventional systems,
integrated assessment modeling for quantitative risk assess-
ment of large-scale geologic CO2 storage, characterization
of potential pathways for unwanted subsurface fluid migra-
tion, and industrial process-waste management. Dilmore holds
a BS degree from the University of Delaware and a PhD
degree in environmental engineering from the University of
Pittsburgh. He has authored or coauthored more than 40 pub-
lished papers, technical reports, and book chapters on his
research; is a professional engineer in the commonwealth of
Pennsylvania; and holds board certification as an environ-
mental engineer with the American Academy of Environmen-
tal Engineers and Scientists.
John Wang is currently an associate professor of petroleum
and natural-gas engineering at the John and Willie Leone Fam-
ily Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering, having
joined the faculty of Pennsylvania State University in 2009. He is
also a director of Alfavor Petroleum Corporation. Before joining
the university, Wang was a petroleum engineer with a US inde-
pendent producer in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he worked
on evaluating and optimizing producing oil/gas fields. He is
dedicated to advancing the knowledge and practices in res-
ervoir evaluation and stimulation through teaching undergrad-
uate and graduate courses, working with research scientists/
associates/assistants, and serving the industry and professional
society in a number of ways. Currently, Wang serves as the edi-
tor-in-chief of Elsevier’s Journal of Unconventional Oil and Gas
Resources, and is an associate editor of Springer’s Journal of
Petroleum Exploration and Production Technologies. He holds
a PhD degree from Texas A&M University, an MSc degree from
the University of Houston, and a BS degree from the University of
Petroleum of China, all in petroleum engineering.
Andrew Kleit is a professor of energy and environmental eco-
nomics and MICASU Faculty Fellow at the Pennsylvania State

May 2016 SPE Production & Operations 145

ID: jaganm Time: 20:55 I Path: S:/PO##/Vol00000/160002/Comp/APPFile/SA-PO##160002

 PO173364 DOI: 10.2118/173364-PA Date: 5-May-16 Stage: Page: 146 Total Pages: 14

University. He is the Founding Chair of the Energy Business and
Finance Program, the largest undergraduate major in the uni-
versity’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. Before becom-
ing an academic, Kleit was Economic Advisor to the Director,
Bureau of Competition, Federal Trade Commission, and Senior
Economic Adviser to the Director for Investigation and Research
(the chief antitrust official in Canada). He has traveled widely in
Peru and has deep interest in the economic development of
the country. Together with Oswaldo Morales Tristan of ESAN Uni-
versity in Lima, Kleit is working on a research agenda examining
the impacts of mining on political unrest in Peru. He has also
taught two courses at ESAN University. Kleit is the author of more
than 70 articles, including publications in the Journal of Law and
Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Health Affairs,
Health Economics, Journal of Regulatory Economics, Resources
and Energy Economics, Energy Studies Review, and The Energy
Journal. He is the author or editor of five books, including Elec-
tricity Restructuring: The Texas Story (2009) and Electric Choices:
Deregulation and the Future of Electric Power (2006). Kleit holds
a PhD degree in economics from Yale University.

146 May 2016 SPE Production & Operations

ID: jaganm Time: 20:55 I Path: S:/PO##/Vol00000/160002/Comp/APPFile/SA-PO##160002