Geomechanical and anisotropic acoustic properties of Lower Jurassic Posidonia Shales from Whitby (UK)

Abstract

The Posidonia Shale Formation (PSF) is one of the possible resource shales for unconventional gas in Northern Europe and currently is of great interest to hydrocarbon exploration and production. Due to low permeability of shales, economically viable production requires hydraulic fracturing of the reservoir. The design of hydrofractures requires an estimate of stress state within the reservoir and geomechanical properties such as Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio.