Patent ID: 11899155
Assignee: CENOVUS ENERGY INC.
Field: Civil engineering (Other fields)
Classification: CPC G  E | IPC E  G

Claim 13:
14. A method of reducing water consumption for fracturing a geologic formation surrounding a borehole, the method comprising:
imaging, using a downhole tool within the borehole, the geologic formation surrounding the borehole to obtain imagery of the geologic formation along a certain extent of the borehole, wherein the imaging comprises focusing an outbound acoustic energy, launched from the downhole tool, on a volume within the geologic formation spaced away from the borehole, the focusing creating a virtual point source from which a return acoustic energy propagates, wherein the volume of the virtual point source experiences a pressure change due to constructive wave interference of acoustic waves at the volume, and receiving the return acoustic energy, wherein the focusing of the outbound acoustic energy creates the virtual point source using beamforming that emits the outbound acoustic energy from the downhole tool;
analyzing the imagery to identify certain zones based on features in the geologic formation revealed by the imagery, the analyzing of the imagery results in identified zones;
identifying natural fractures in the geologic formation within the identified zones, the identifying results in identified fractures;
selecting regions in the borehole based upon the identified fractures to create selected regions, wherein the selected regions collectively represent less than the certain extent of the borehole; and
determining one or more individual fracturing locations corresponding to each selected region, so that fracturing the borehole at each respective fracturing location, without fracturing elsewhere along the certain extent of the borehole, results in fracturing only the selected regions of the borehole, thereby reducing water consumption during fracturing operation.