The frequent occurrence of casing failure has significantly affected the development of shale gas in the Sichuan Basin. Based on engineering and geology analyses, natural fracture/fault slip leads to casing shear deformation during hydraulic fracturing. Hence, natural fracture/fault slip and casing‐cement sheath‐formation assembly finite element models were established to quantitatively examine the characteristics of natural fracture/fault slip and mechanisms of casing shear deformation. Many factors, such as formation elastic property, in situ stress, natural fracture/fault geometry property, fluid pressure, casing elastic property, cement sheath elastic property, and well trajectory, were considered. The simulated results were in good agreement with the field data. The results indicated that natural fracture/fault slip leads to a sharp increase in casing deformation and stress in the adjacent region. Furthermore, factor sensitivity analysis results showed that a higher fluid pressure, larger fracture length, larger fracture dip angle, higher in situ stress difference, lower formation Young's modulus, and shorter distance from the wellbore to the center of the slip surface lead to severe casing stress and deformation. The countermeasures for preventing casing shear deformation involve decreasing the fracturing treatment pressure, reducing the crossing angle between the wellbore and natural fracture/fault, maintaining a safe distance from the wellbore to the large fracture/fault center, and adopting “balanced stress” fracturing operation. Hence, this study proposes a reasonable method to evaluate casing shear damage under hydraulic fracturing.

Shale gas reservoirs contain a large number of natural fractures. When shear slip occurs during hydraulic fracturing, it will increase reservoir permeability and improve the reservoir stimulation performance. Because shale contains a large amount of clay and organic matter, its shear slip behavior differs from that of other rocks. In this study, the shear behavior of different shale blocks is experimentally studied, and the proportion of clay and organic matter in the shale dominates the shear slip behavior. Specifically, the friction coefficient and shear strength decrease with the increasing content of clay and organic matter. A microscopic support model was developed to describe the different shear slip behaviors for different contents of clay and organic matter. When the clay and organic matter content is lower than a critical threshold (~35%), shale is microscopically grain supported and brittle shear occurs and the material is prone to shear dilation. When this content is greater than a critical content (~43%), the microscopic structure is a matrix‐supported fabric and plastic shear occurs, which is prone to shear contraction. Shale with contents between these two critical thresholds has a mixed‐support fabric, which is a transition type between brittle and plastic shear. If the proportion of clay and organic matter is less than ~35%, the natural fracture tends to dilate and retain a certain degree of opening after shearing, improving stimulation performance. When the proportion is more than ~43%, shear contraction occurs on the natural fracture surface, which is not conductive and cannot increase reservoir permeability.

An effective fracability evaluation on the fracture network is key to the whole process of shale gas exploitation. At present, neither a standard crit

Tight sand gas is an important unconventional natural gas. Liquid filtration plays a main role in the formation damage. Flowback rate is closely related to the formation permeability recovery. Usually, the more flowback rate is, the better the permeability recovery is. In order to research the factors that influence the liquid flowback, the tight sand characteristics and gas displacement have been investigated. Some experiments were carried out, including porosity, permeability, XRD, casting thin section, SEM, stress sensitivity, rock expansion, and gas displacement. The results are shown as follows. Taiyuan formation has average high clay content than H8 formation. Illite is the main clay in Taiyuan formation; chlorite is the main clay in H8 formation. From the casting thin section, the rock has strong compression. Taiyuan formation has large pore. However, H8 formation mainly has small cracks. Through the SEM, there are many micro- to nanocracks as well as some pores in these two formations. In some cases, cracks penetrate the clays. From the permeability stress sensitivity, these tight sands have strong stress sensitivity. Permeability decreases quickly with increasing confining pressure. In the rock expansion experiment, the tight sand has less expansion rate compared with shale gas rock and volcanic gas rock. Rock expansion rate has positive relationship with clay content. In the gas displacement experiment, usually the higher the clay content, the lesser the liquid flowback. Some samples have high clay content. However, it has high flowback rate, which may account for good pore connection. Through the above study, the flowback rate has negative relationship with clay content and positive relationship with pore size, pore connection, and displacement pressure. In order to increase tight gas production in the study area, the formation should have high flowback rate and less liquid retention. Therefore, clay expansion preventing additives should be added into the fracturing liquid to reduce the liquid retention. The quick flowback should be implemented after hydraulic fracturing for reducing the interaction between liquid and rock. At the same time, the drawdown pressure should keep in a certain value to reduce stress sensitivity.