Faults, Fractures, Fluid Flow, and Cross-Industry Applicability in the Energy Transition

Session: Faults, Fractures, and Geomechanics for the Energy Transition

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To support the energy transition, today’s geoscientists must develop cross-industry awareness to allow for skills transferability not just between play types (i.e. deepwater vs. unconventional reservoirs) but also across energy industries. In previous generations it was common to guide postgraduate students through industry applications as a pipeline into a career role within or supporting a single industry. Today, many early career and experienced geoscientists in industry and academia are crossing industries to meet the needs of the energy transition and sustainability objectives. With that in mind, this presentation highlights key concepts related to fluid flow in fractured and faulted reservoirs that are applicable to a range of subsurface applications including petroleum exploration, geothermal and enhanced geothermal systems, natural hydrogen exploration, and underground storage. For example, experience acquired from hydraulic fracturing in naturally fractured shale hydrocarbon reservoirs is being used to optimize stimulation of lateral wells in enhanced geothermal systems; techniques developed to optimize gas and waterflooding in fractured reservoirs are being adapted to mitigate hazards caused by wastewater injection and assess CO₂ storage in depleted reservoirs.

Characterizing fractures and faults using standard techniques (i.e., well logs, image logs, core, seismic, outcrop analogs) is still fundamental. Though data accessibility varies, approaches for measuring faults, fractures, and fluid flow in the field are transferable, whether in sedimentary layers in oil and gas applications, or in granites, ophiolites, basalts, etc. in mining or for hydrogen, helium, or lithium exploration. Methods for measuring fluid flow include flow and pressure gauges, radioactive tracers, pump-in tests, and fiber optic sensing. Modeling fluid flow using staggered or fully coupled multiphysics simulation has also become commonplace in all industries to predict the combined effects of flow with fracturing and rock failure, poromechanics, heat flow, multi-phase behavior, advection and diffusion of gas in solution, etc. A solid skillset in fundamental fault and fracture characterization techniques combined with a basic understanding of the underlying physics of different subsurface processes and experience with computer modeling (whether physics based, statistics, artificial intelligence, etc.) is critical for the next generation of geoscientists as they apply their skills to the energy transition.