Impact of hydraulic fracturing in the overburden of shale resource plays: Process-based evaluation (SHAPE-UK)

Lead Research Organisation: British Geological Survey
Department Name: Environmental Modelling

Abstract

In recent years, the UK has made significant progress in establishing renewable sources of energy. Solar, wind, biomass and hydro have seen a steady rise in use over the past decade, having gone from providing less than 5% of our electricity in 2004 to nearly 25% in 2016 (DBEIS, 'DUKES' - chapter 6, 2017). Nevertheless, natural gas will continue to be an important fuel in a transition to a carbon neutral supply of electricity. Furthermore, natural gas currently heats roughly 80% of our homes in the UK, and provides an important industrial feedstock. As North Sea gas reserves decline, the UK has in a decade gone from a position of self-sufficiency to importing over 50% of its natural gas. Therefore, for reasons of energy security, affordability and environmental impact, it is desirable to increase domestic gas supplies until we reach a point where carbon neutral energy sources are better established (e.g., nuclear).

Shale gas and shale oil has transformed the World's energy market, contributing to the reduction of world oil prices and the USA becoming self-sufficient in both gas and oil. Furthermore, CO2 emissions in the USA are back to levels last seen in the early 1990s, because electricity generation has moved from coal- to gas-fired power stations. However, the move to shale gas has not been without controversy. Shale gas resources normally require hydraulic fracture stimulation - or fracking - in order to achieve production at economic rates. This technique is contentious due to public fears over a range of issues, including ground water contamination, induced seismicity, atmospheric emissions and ground subsidence.

In November 2017 the UK will see its first shale gas stimulation in over 6 years, which will occur in the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire. The UK has a strict regulatory framework for shale gas exploitation, which requires close monitoring of any fluid leakage, fracture growth and induced seismicity associated with fracking. To achieve this requires a detailed understanding of local geology, and robust means of sensing fluid movement and stress changes before, during and after stimulation (e.g., geophysical monitoring). SHAPE-UK is a project that will establish a series of best practice recommendations for monitoring and mitigating fluid leakage into the overlying sediments and close to boreholes. To accomplish this, it is crucial that we understand the mechanical processes occurring in the subsurface, which are dependent on the composition of the rock, the chemistry of the fluids, and the structures they encounter (e.g., faults). Through a linked series of work packages that integrate geology, geophysics, geochemistry, petroleum engineering and geomechanics, we will be able to address fundamental scientific questions about the mechanisms for leakage, and how the leaking fluids might affect the sub-surface environment.

A team of leading experts from a range of disciplines at 6 institutions has been assembled to address 'coupled processes from the reservoir to the surface' - Challenge 3 of the NERC call for proposals in the strategic programme area of Unconventional Hydrocarbons in the UK Energy System. We will exploit newly acquired data from the UK Geoenergy Observatory near Thornton in Cheshire. We are also very fortunate to have access to seismic, borehole and geologic data from a new shale gas development in North Yorkshire and a dataset from a mature shale gas resource in Western Canada. Our project partners include regulatory bodies who monitor ground water and seismicity during shale gas operations. The team has access to several comprehensive datasets and are thus in a very strong position to answer fundamental science questions associated with shale gas stimulation, which will provide a firm foundation for an effective regulatory policy. We expect this project to be a role model study for future developments in the UK and internationally.

Planned Impact

The potential for using hydraulic fracturing for the production of shale gas in the UK may lead to significant economic benefits, but it is also a controversial activity. The overarching objective of the SHAPE-UK project is to provide a robust framework with which to assess, monitor and mitigate risks of leakage through the overburden of UK shale gas prospects - key issues in terms of public perception and robust regulation. The economic and regulatory importance of the project is significant and, given the generic nature of the work with respect to geological containment, there are many potential beneficiaries of the research.

Who would benefit from the proposed research?
Industry:
-Companies involved in production of hydrocarbons from unconventional reservoirs
-Companies involved in exploration and production of conventional hydrocarbons: risk assessment of petroleum seals and more effective and safer drilling of the overburden
-Companies involved in CO2 and gas storage, mining and geothermal exploitation, where rapid stress changes within the overburden can result in felt seismic activity and possible leakage through the overburden

Government and Regulatory Organisations:
-UK Policymakers and Regulators, including DBEIS and the UK and Scottish Environment Agency
-Oil and Gas Authority
-Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and similar European bodies (NAGRA, ANDRA)

Technology Organisers and Providers:
-UK: Energy Technologies Institute, Innovate UK, UKCCSRC, UKOOG, ITF
-Europe and Beyond: European Environment Agency, EERA, IEA GHG

The general public:
-Via local councils, rotary clubs, etc., in areas of proposed shale gas exploration

How might the potential beneficiaries benefit?

We have worked closely with UK and overseas industry and regulators in all key areas of this proposal and are well placed to transfer results and knowledge. We also have a strong track record in public communication of science.

Financial beneficiaries: Companies applying for an onshore production licence (a Petroleum Exploration and Development Licence, PEDL), and, by association, UK PLC, require sound geologic risk assessment and will benefit from the framework resulting from this proposed work. On a more international scale, the issues faced with using hydraulic fracturing as a technique for developing hydrocarbon resources in proximity to substantial populations are not problems unique to the UK; potential shale gas provinces exist in other populated areas in North America (NY State has a fracking moratorium), Europe and beyond.

Regulators: will benefit from the project deliverables, including white papers and best-practice recommendations. Their involvement on the management boards of SHAPE-UK will ensure this. Examples include seismic network design, monitoring strategies, and a better understanding of environmental risks.

General public: local populations within the vicinity of proposed shale gas sites require clear and unbiased information about the safety of hydraulic fracturing. These communities will benefit from impartial and independent scientific information regarding potential leakage mechanisms and fracking in general.

Software development: A number of the investigators in the SHAPE-UK project have experience in producing commercially viable software, for example: fault seal analysis (Traptester, RDR Petrel Fault Analysis Plugin); coupled flow geomechanical modelling (ELFENRS); seismic modelling (ATRAK); geomechanical prediction of microseismicity (ELFEN TGR); and pore pressure prediction (ShaleQuant). This will benefit UK PLC, as evinced by many of our 4* Impact Case Studies in REF2014.

Young scientists: Our students and young researchers have a strong track record of entering geological and environmental industries. Through annual meetings with industry representatives, they learn time management skills and are also obliged to see the relevance and potential impact of their research.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Description The in-situ stress within the crust is really important for determining the orientation of any hydraulic fractures will propagate in. It also determines which faults and fractures are critically stressed, that is the likelihood of faults in different orientations to be mobilised. Initial data analysis of in-situ stress orientation data from one experimental area (Cheshire) has now been completed and a second (Lancashire) is now completed. Rock testing needed for calculating in-situ stress magnitude is completed and data analysis completed. Initial results are now being checked and validated and will be used to understand the relationship between in-situ stress, faults and seismicity.
Exploitation Route When these analysis are complete they can be used in cooperation with University of Bristol's seismicity analysis.This will provide an evidence base for future policies relating to stimulating permeability which will affect not only hydrocarbon productions but also has implications for deep geothermal power.
Sectors Energy

Government

Democracy and Justice

 
Description There is a developing impact on in-situ stress. The UK Government have announced a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing following induced seismicity. The combination of data gathered around this location will enable a clearer understanding of the likelihood of such seismicity and the conditions in the vicinity like to affect this. Beyond hydrocarbons the same issues are likely to be significant in deep geothermal heat and Carbon Capture and Storage. This impact has been shown in winning EU funding, writing grants including contributions to SHARP project funded through the ACT programme (Accelerating CCS Technologies). Project No 327342. http://www.act-ccs.eu/
First Year Of Impact 2022
Sector Energy,Environment
Impact Types Policy & public services

 
Description (OptiDrill) - Optimisation of Geothermal Drilling Operation with Machine Learning
Amount € 3,985,303 (EUR)
Funding ID 101006964 
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 01/2021 
End 12/2023
 
Title Kingdon, A., Fellgett, M.W., Graham, R.L. (2023). Borehole image derived bedding, discontinuity and borehole breakout interpretations from UK Lancashire exploration wells. NERC EDS National Geoscience Data Centre. (Dataset). 
Description Interpreted data from UK shale gas exploration wells in Lancashire Becconsall 1Z (BGS SOBI registration number: SD24SW/11) and Grange Hill 1Z (BGS SOBI registration number : SD33NE/27). Interpretion of specialist downhole dataset, resistivity boreholes images (FMI, CMI) looking at the in-situ stress indicators (Borehole Breakouts and Drilling Induced Tensile Fractures) and also bedding and visible discontinuity ("fractures") data visible in imaging of borehole walls for samples lithostratigraphic units in the Carboniferous succession. Data to support research into relationships between in-situ stress anisotropy orientation and fracture orientation at mm-dm scales. Raw geophysical log data available from BGS at https://www.bgs.ac.uk/map-viewers/geoindex-onshore/ licenced under Open Government Licence (CC BY) "Contains British Geological Survey materials © UKRI [2023]" 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2023 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Used within research by UKUH SHAPE partner to research predominant fracture orientation, and also relationships between regional in-situ stress and fracture orientations. 
URL https://doi.org/10.5285/83f3968d-5a29-4f20-a173-f1cf7436f254
 
Title Stratigraphic and structural interpretation of the released commercial "Bowland-12" 3D Seismic reflection survey data acquired in 2012, Lancashire UK 
Description 3D seismic reflection survey interpretation dataset for Deep structure of Fylde peninsula, Lancashire UK. This survey was acquired commercially around shale gas licenced boreholes, including Preese Hall 1 and Preston New Road 1, 1Z & 2 which were subsequently subject to industrial hydraulic fracturing and induced seismicity. This dataset contains interpreted surface, faults and associated information. This allow understanding of the natural fracturing within the Carboniferous succession, including the Bowland Shale Formation. This interpretation allows understanding of seismic scale structure and sedimentary surfaces around boreholes whcih wereaffected by indicted seismicity from industrial well completion operations. Data provided in Petrel format (effective industry standard). For licencing reasons wells data (apart from location data) are not incorporated but are licenced free of charge under OGL and should be downloaded from BGS Geoindex (https://www.bgs.ac.uk/map-viewers/geoindex-onshore/) Commercial seismic survey name: CUADRILLA 2012 BOWLAND-12 (UKOGL ID: 30028, NSTA ID: CW123DL001). For licencing reasons seismic survey data is not included but released data is available for download from: https://ukogl.org.uk/ 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2023 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact This seismic data has been used by work by Rodríguez-Pradilla & Verdon, 2024 (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352380824000017) to look at scale of visible fractures around the wellbore and compared those with the actual locations from those fractures responsibility for induced seismicity in the aftermath of industrial hydraulic fracturing locations (various publications by Verdon, Kettleby and Kendall etc). This proved that the fractures detectable from surface-based seismic reflection surveying before drilling were larger than those which were actually responsible for the induced seismicity and therefore the scale of fractures cannot be detected independently of drilling. This means that potentially seismically active natural fractures cannot be identified pre-drilling, nor avoided nor engineered around. Therefore hydraulic fracturing operations cannot be conducted under UK conditions without risking induced seismicity which has proven to be deeply unpopular with the population in the vicinity of these boreholes. 
URL https://www2.bgs.ac.uk/nationalgeosciencedatacentre/citedData/catalogue/27c06acf-cf4f-4a1e-aafc-274f...
 
Title Stratigraphic and structural interpretation of the released commercial "Bowland-12" 3D Seismic reflection survey data acquired in 2012, Lancashire UK 
Description Interpretation data pack from the 3D seismic reflection survey for the commercial "Bowland-12" 3D seismic reflection survey. This survey covers the Fylde region of Lancashire west of Blackpool and Lytham St Annes. The interpretation data file contains interpreted lithostratigraphic surfaces, fault plane locations and orientations for the Permo-Triassic and Carboniferous successions. The data also includes well surface locations and well path orientation data. The interpretation data is provided as a PETREL (TM of SMB) project in PETREL format (which is widely used in industry and academia for subsurface data and should therefore be ingestible by most other 3D seismic interpretation software packages. This data pack does not however contain the raw seismic or well day necessary to visualise and understand this data. Note on Data Access: The original "Bowland-12" commercial 3D seismic survey acquired in 2012 has been released (i.e. made openly available) by the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) and made available through UKOGL website. All access to the seismic data is through UKOGL according to the charging policies agreed by these two organisations. Neither NGDC nor BGS are able to provide access to these data. The data pack incorporates well top interpretation data, surface well locations and well path orientation data from Grange Hill 1Z, Preese Hall 1 and Preston New Road 1 and 2 wells and sidetracks. Raw geophysical log data is available from NSTA via BGS Geoindex on the BGS Website. Please read the terms and conditions/licensing for these data upon download. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2023 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://www2.bgs.ac.uk/nationalgeosciencedatacentre/citedData/catalogue/27c06acf-cf4f-4a1e-aafc-274f...
 
Title Stress Map of Great Britain and Ireland 2022 
Description This dataset (both map and underlying database) provides a synthesis of all UK in-situ stress orientation data, a critical factor in the stability of any subsurface engineered structures (boreholes, shafts, tunnels. Understanding of the orientation of maximum in-situ stress direction is vital for understanding the orientation of critically stress fracture which in turn are those with a likelihood of undergoing induced seismicity when the subsurface system is perturbated (eg under hydraulic fracturing). The map syntheses outputs from all in-situ stress analysis from published literature but also incorporates new figure including data described from UKUH / SHAPE. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2022 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact It is therefore an essential tool for understanding these risks and propagating knowledge derived from UKUH/Shape to the wider stakeholder community. Earlier equivalent datasets are used extensively by companies involved in resource planning, government organisations and regulators monitoring and regulating such activities and all organisations involved in subsurface engineering. This output will be used extensively over many years in scientific studies but also planning applications, informing regulators, setting safety constraints on those developments etc. 
URL https://doi.org/10.5880/WSM.GreatBritainIreland2022
 
Title UK in-situ stress field orientation from borehole breakouts and drilling induced tensile fractures identified using borehole imaging (2020) 
Description This dataset contains 323 observations of borehole breakouts across and drilling induced tensile fractures from borehole imaging used to re-characterise the UK stress field orientation in 2016. This was published in the Journal of Marine and Petroleum Geology and is openly available using doi:10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2016.02.012 The observations relate to 39 wells from Central and Northern England and are provided with links to screen grabs of the images for clarity. The basic well meta data is supplied along with a description of the dataset. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2020 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Compilation of data served to other project partners 
URL https://www2.bgs.ac.uk/nationalgeosciencedatacentre/citedData/catalogue/3b35aef2-b084-47c8-88a7-20b0...
 
Description Collaboration with University of Newcastle on UK subsurface data to support geothermal drilling 
Organisation Newcastle University
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Descriptions of relevant subsurface data and metadata that was used to improve their paper on data for geothermal energy. Led to recent grant submission
Collaborator Contribution Description and collation of relevant data for geothermal energy leading to grant submission
Impact Submission of paper (under review) Suitability of legacy oil and gas subsurface data for nascent geoenergy activities onshore United Kingdom Mark Thomas Ireland, Rachel Brown, Miles Wilson, Paul Stretesky, Andrew Kingdon and Richard Davies, Frontiers in Earth Sciences
Start Year 2020
 
Description Presentation of SHAPE & UK Geoenergy Observatories at PETEX 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Speaking about the UK Geoenergy Observatories and outcome of SHAPE-UK analysis to an industry audience at PETEX 2018, a UK hydrocarbon industry conference. Informing UK industry about the opportunities for the to us the UKGEOS facilities and the stress understanding from SHAPE-UK
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018