Stimulated Volume Determination of a Horizontal Well in a Shale Oil Reservoir in the Vaca Muerta Formation and Its Interaction With Existing Fracture Networks

Hydraulic fracturing is a stimulation technique that plays a critical role to provide transport path networks in unconventional shale reservoirs, yet the quantitative characterization of fracture propagation, its interaction with natural discontinuities, and the resulting stimulated volume remain challenging in heterogeneous formations such as the Vaca Muerta shale. This study implements a numerical framework that couples poroelastic rock deformation and its internal pours flow, based on Biot’s theory of poroelasticity, with open flow inside fractures and introduces a stress‐dependent permeability‐growth model to identify the stimulated region. The framework is validated against field data from the Vaca Muerta shale (Neuquén Basin, Argentina), using Diagnostic Fracture Injection Test (DFIT) data to calibrate the permeability‐growth model and evaluate the influence of discrete fracture network (DFN) properties, such as location, orientation, and extension. The geomechanical properties were calibrated against in situ stress measurements with an error within 1%. Once calibrated with DFIT data, the proposed numerical framework reproduces the measured bottom‐hole pressure with an error below 0.2%, while the estimated closure pressure is consistent with independent geomechanical data. The proposed approach provides a unified formulation to determine the stimulated reservoir volume (SRV) by jointly calibrating permeability‐growth model parameters and DFN characteristics using DFIT data. These findings contribute to improved assessment of stimulation effectiveness and provide a basis for future optimization of hydraulic fracturing design.