Schlumberger Technology Corporation

Brice Lecampion

Romain Charles Andre Prioul

George Alan Waters

Florian Karpfinger

An apparatus and methods for forming a transverse fracture in a subterranean formation surrounding a wellbore including measuring a property along the length of the formation surrounding the wellbore, forming a stress profile of the formation, identifying a region of the formation to remove using the stress profile, removing the region with a device in the wellbore, and introducing a fluid into the wellbore, wherein a transverse fracture is more likely to form than if the region was not removed. Some embodiments benefit from computing the energy required to initiate and propagate a fracture from the region, optimizing the fluid introduction to minimize the energy required, and optimizing the geometry of the region.

Competition between transverse and axial hydraulic fractures in horizontal well

The subject disclosure relates to determining an optimum orientation for perforations around the circumference of a subsurface borehole and optimum wellbore fluid initiation pressure for hydraulic fracturing in anisotropic formations.

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Cambridge, MA, United States of America

Brice Lecampion