Engineering Problems in the Development of Unconventional Oil and Gas Reservoirs

Dear Colleagues,

Unconventional hydrocarbon accounts for approximately 80% of the total oil and gas resources all over the world. The development of unconventional reservoirs constitutes a significant guarantee for realizing the transformation of the global energy mix. Due to its low porosity and low permeability, multiscale structure spanning nanometers to kilometers, strong heterogeneity, and complex geological conditions, unconventional oil and gas extraction involves numerous engineering challenges. The representative engineering problems include cross-scale reservoir characterization and evaluation, stress field and natural fracture description and evolution, prediction and real-time tracking of artificial fracture network propagation, rapid and safe drilling, and dynamic optimization of fracturing stimulation methods. 

This Special Issue aims to assemble original research works attempting to solve aforementioned problems. Relevant aspects include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Laboratory experiments involving advanced techniques;
2. Simulation coupling multi-physical fields;
3. Machine learning used for enhancing unconventional reservoirs;
4. Correlations among multiple scales;
5. Filed applications of new theories and methodologies.

Dr. Junliang Zhao
Prof. Dr. Huiying Tang
Dr. Haibin Chang
Guest Editors

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