Hydraulic Fracture Treatment, Optimization, and Production Modeling

Abstract Production of oil and gas from unconventional resources commonly requires stimulation, and a good stimulation requires a rigorous analysis of reservoir quality and completion quality of the unconventional formation and an optimized completion design. This chapter presents an overview on hydraulic fracture modeling and optimization, including fracture fluid selection, proppant selection, fracture design, estimating fracture properties, and completion strategies. It also discusses production modeling, and compares analytical and numerical modeling methods.