Experimental Research on Horizontal In-Situ Stress Orientation Determination through Viscous Remanent Magnetization

In order to determine the orientation of horizontal in-situ stress conveniently and accurately,and provide help in hydraulic fracturing of shale gas,a technique called Viscous Remnant Magnetization (VRM) was investigated.Compared with conventional methods,VRM can help to provide the determination of core orientation without considering the deposit age and tectonic movement of the formation.In the experiment,the procedure of thermal demagnetization was introduced in detail to extract VRM for core orientation determination from a shale gas well in Fuling of Sichuan basin.Combining the results of Kaiser effect,the orientation of maximum horizontal stress was obtained.It indicated that results from VRM were basically consistent with those from seismic data.So it is feasible and effective to utilize VRM horizontal in-situ stress orientation determination.