A Comparative Assessment of Quantitative Risk as Applied to Hydraulic Fracturing Operations

摘要

Shale gas is one of the most widely discussed unconventional gas resource with vast potential. With the United States having benefitted immensely from it, other countries are also venturing into it. Drilling horizontal wells and hydraulically fracturing them are two major components of developing a shale gas reservoir economically. With many countries in Europe looking at the possibility of producing gas from shale reservoirs, the practice of hydraulic fracturing (HF) is going to gain even more prominence. However, operationally the procedure to hydraulically fracture a well is very complex, and has many possible situations which can lead to an accident. Some of these accidents may lead to catastrophic consequences, leading to loss of lives. In the industry, there are multiple methods used to classify and quantify risk, based on certain parameters. This paper performs a comprehensive risk assessment for the entire hydraulic fracturing job, from an operational perspective. This is done using industry available techniques. The result of this work is to assess the risk factor achieved from each technique, and check whether each of the methods converges onto a single sub-operation, classifying it as the most risky, with the highest risk ranking. Based on the results, this paper recommends steps to counter the minor but risky situations that may arise due to negligence. The results are compared with an actual fracturing operation on the field.