Presenter
Dr. Seyyed Hosseini
Research Scientist, Bureau of Economic Geology
Abstract
Injection of fluids in deep subsurface geological formations has created a series of challenges in recent decades. The possibility of upward fluid leakage along nearby wells and faults is one of the main issues related to these operations. It is important to ensure that such conduits, if present, can be detected, characterized and treated. Looking for pressure abnormalities in intervals above the injection zones is one the methods used to monitor for these conduits. We propose an analytical solution to detect and characterize the vertical leakage from a fault of finite length using pressure data collected from monitoring zones. The proposed closed-form analytical model would allow to not only distinguish the pressure signal of leakage from a fault of finite length from other possible leakage conduits but also to estimate the leakage rate, length of the leaky section of the fault and relative position of the fault with respect to the location of monitoring well. The proposed solution can potentially be applied to characterizing hydraulic fractures.
