The 2018 Houston Geological Society Applied Geoscience Conference - Geomechanics in Unconventionals was opened by HGS president John Adamick on November 8th, 2017 at the Southwest Energy Conference Center. Ron Hayden, Southwest Energy Vice President of Technology was there to welcome all participants to the facility for the two-day event. This bi-annual conference provided an update on the latest research on unconventional geomechanics being done by universities and industry.
The HGS Geomechanics Conference Committee was lead by General Chairs Robert Hurt and Umesh Prasad and supported by twenty-two industry experts.
The “Best Poster Award” went to MSc student Ishank Gupta from the University of Oklahoma who presented his research entitled “Water Weakening: Case Study from Marcellus, Woodford and Eagle Ford”.
The “first runner Up Award” went to went to Ph.D. student Zhi Ye from the University of Oklahoma who presented his research entitled “Mechanical Properties and Permeability Evolution of Shale Fractures under Triaxial Loading”.
The “second runner Up Award” went to went to Ph.D. student Matthew Ramos from the University of Texas who presented his research entitled “Stress-Dependent Dynamic-Static Transforms of Anisotropic Mancos Shale”.
The event was generously supported by many industry sponsors including for the event venue. We are particularly thankful to Southwest Energy for allowing the use of their Conference Center which made it possible for HGS to offer this program at a very reasonable cost.
Download the Full Conference Program
Edited Abstracts:
| Session | Speaker | Title |
| Session 1: Geomechanical Characterization | Jesse Hampton | A Novel Geomechanical Characterization Methodology for Quantifying Fine Scale Heterogeneity |
| Session 1: Geomechanical Characterization | Mao Bai | Brittleness and Fracability in Stimulating Shale Reservoirs |
| Session 1: Geomechanical Characterization | Ron Nelson | The Relationship between Natural Fracture Distribution and Elastic Mechanical Properties in the Subsurface: Measurement and Calibration |
| Session 1: Geomechanical Characterization | Munir Aldin | A Novel Way to Characterize Biot’s Coefficient in Unconventionals |
| Keynote | Terry Engelder | What Maintains High Pore Pressure in Gas Shale During Exhumation, Long After Thermal Maturation Ceases? |
| Session 2: Engineering Applications | Ahmad Ghassemi | Complex Fracture Network Creation in Stimulation of Unconventional Reservoirs |
| Session 2: Engineering Applications | Tobias Hoeink | Hydraulic Stimulation in the Presence of Fractures |
| Session 3: Surveillance and Diagnostics | Dan Kahn | DAS Microseismic Monitoring and Integration with Strain Measurements in Hydraulic Fracture Profiling |
| Session 3: Surveillance and Diagnostics | Robert Hull | Integration of DAS Fiber-Based Strain and Microseismic Data for Monitoring Horizontal Hydraulic Stimulations – Midland Basin Texas Examples |
| Keynote | Lans Taylor | Optimized Recovery from Unconventional Reservoirs: How Nanophysics, the Micro-Crack Debate, and Complex Fracture Geometry Impact Operations |
| Session 4: Case Studies | Doug Walser | Quantifying the Impact of Induced Asymmetric Fracturing from Horizontal Development Wellbores; a Geostatistical Perspective |
| Session 4: Case Studies | Julie Kowan | Efficient Well Delivery in Shale Plays – Examples from the Marcellus and Permian |
| Session 4: Case Studies | Sandeep Mukherjee | Characterization of Fractures from Borehole Images |
| Session 4: Case Studies | Sergey Kotov | Lateral Characterization and Fracture Optimization Solution with Case Studies |