Hydraulic fracture stimulation to increase the hydrocarbon production in heterogeneous and thin turbidite reservoirs such as those found in Chicontepec Paleocanyon Sandstone (Mexico) depends on the formation properties like rock properties, stress state, pore-pressure, flow quality properties and formation heterogeneity. This paper presents a laboratory campaign (petrographical and mechanical), well-logs campaign (petrophysical and images) and field measurements (pressure measurement and leakoff) to build the geomechanical model of the studied area. The main purpose of this paper is to describe a methodology to evaluate the impact of geomechanics in the fracture design optimization in Soledad Field, Chicontepec Basin.
Successful design of hydraulic fractures treatment depends upon accurate knowledge of geomechanics properties of the reservoir and thin interlayers shales. The fracturing environmental within the Chicontepec basin (Mexico) is very challenging for many reasons. The reservoir presents a low permeability and effective porosity; multiple reservoir intervals are founded with thin shale bedded (mainly esmectite and illite) and the reservoir has been producing for more than four decades without stimulation. The Paleogene Chicontepec Formation was deposited between the Sierra Madre Oriental and the Golden Lane Platform, extends NW-SE along the Gulf Coast in Mexico (Figure 1). Chicontepec Basin is made of submarine fan turbidity sediments derived from the Sierra Madre Oriental to the west of the basin and is composed mainly of alternating shales and thin bedded sandstones (Pena et al., 2009). The formation has a thickness of ∼2000m covering most of the 3731 km2 in Tampico- Misantla Basin. Previous sedimentological studies demonstrate that multiple sediment supply systems formed submarine fans along the western margin of the Chicontepec Formation. Sediments derived from the uplifted Mesozoic carbonate units were deposited along a deep marine foreland basin east of the deformation front of the Sierra Madre Oriental fold-thrust belt.
