Techno-Economic Study of CO2 Fracturing as a Sustainable Development of Shale Reservoirs in Mexico

Abstract In Mexico, the usage of water for fracturing has limited the national operator to develop the shale reservoirs. Water shortage in the northeast zone of this country is the main reason to look for a waterless fracturing technique as a sustainable method for development the unconventional resources in Mexico. There are several studies to understand the advantages of CO2 as fracturing fluid in unconventional reservoirs. This work analyzes the resulting properties of propagated and effective fractures created by CO2 pure and with impurities (gasses and solids as "CO2-imp") compared to conventional Slickwater fractures for the shale gas reservoirs companied of economic analysis to study the effectiveness of CO2 fracturing as a sustainable development method for the Burgos Basin in Mexico. The CO2-imp represents the resulted composition from post combustion carbon capture technology typically used in the CO2 sources nearby to the Burgos Basin. An analysis of the effect of solid impurities (presented from chemical reaction in gases families) of CO2-imp during the fracturing propagation is provided. Results of our study are based on fracturing and reservoir compositional simulations and economic analysis. During the propagation, the CO2 fracturing can promote similar fracture geometries as Slickwater, better fracture width and better effective properties (on the post-closure/flow-back period). The propped fracture properties are also studied to obtain production scenarios by reservoir modelling, resulting in the CO2-imp higher production behavior compared to Slickwater, showing the impact of water blockage. Results may show a relevant improved production with the use of CO2-imp of 510% of gas rate and 234% of cumulative gas production than with the use of Slickwater in a period of five years. Results of fracture propagation and post-closure in this work are consistent with those presented previously in the literature. Economic analysis is performed based on four type CO2-sources (thermoelectric power plant, combined cycle power plant, refinery and ammonia plant) and two transport scenarios (by truck tank and new line). Economic results show the CO2 fracturing by truck tank transport is more profitable compared to water fracturing, it is strongly related to production performance resulted from simulation in this work. In our work, the CO2 fracturing scenario based on CO2 transported by a new line is profitable under condition of developing five wells with the same cost and production performance.