LAUSR

Abstract The Efficient development of shale reservoirs becomes increasingly dependent upon infill wells in China to stabilize the gas production. The accurate calculation of dynamic evolution of stress field is important for the design of fracturing and infill wells. The extraction of gas flow results in stress-sensitive and significantly alters the original in-situ stress field, which brings difficulties on geomechanical design for fracturing treatment. Hitherto, the main factors that affect the principal stress alteration is unclear, especially when considering the interference between fractures and wells. Besides, the transport mechanisms of shale gas flow are complex, which bring difficulties in the modeling of deformable multi-continuum. In this paper, an adaptive model that couples multi-continuum matrix and discrete fractures is developed. According to the effective stress coefficients of matrix pores and natural fractures, the total deformation is decomposed into two parts: matrix pore pressure depletion induced deformation and natural fracture pressure depletion induced deformation. The model is then validated to simulate hydromechanical coupling processes in fractured-shale reservoirs during the production period. Sensitivity analysis of stress alteration is also performed to study the alteration angle of the minimum horizontal principal stress during production. The modeling results show that the pressure depletion in natural fractures is the fastest, which dominates the shale deformation. Besides, the gas desorption in organic matters enlarges the alteration angle of the minimum horizontal principal stress during production. Finally, we find the difference between adsorption rate and desorption rate, instead of the total adsorbed gas amount, determines the adsorbed gas production.