Hydraulic fracturing technology serves as the primary method for efficiently developing deep shale resources. During hydraulic fracturing, the thermal stress caused by the injection of fracturing fluid, which has low temperature, has a significant effect on the propagation of multiple hydraulic fractures in deep shale reservoirs. Due to the unclear mechanisms governing multi-fracture propagation in deep shale reservoirs, this study proposed a hydraulic fracturing model for multi-fracture propagation based on the principles of linear elastic fracture mechanics. The model was employed to investigate how formation properties and operational parameters influenced the expansion of multiple hydraulic fractures. The findings revealed that thermal stress fracturing caused by low-temperature fluid injection significantly affected the rock breakdown pressure and fracture initiation timing. Specifically, when the reservoir temperature exceeded 180 °C, the breakdown pressure decreased substantially, and the fracture initiation occurred much earlier. Moreover, an increase in rock thermal conductivity further reduced both the breakdown pressure and the propagation pressure, alleviating the “stress shadow” effect on intermediate fractures and promoting more uniform fracture growth. Furthermore, when the reservoir temperature surpassed 180 °C and the thermal conductivity exceeded 1.3 W/(m K), the influence of horizontal stress difference and cluster spacing on multi-fracture propagation diminished sharply—by more than 40%. This condition facilitated tight containment of the deep shale reservoir and significantly expanded the stimulated reservoir volume. These findings not only enriched and refined the theoretical understanding of hydraulic fracturing in deep shale reservoirs but also provided a valuable reference for optimizing fracturing parameters in the development of deep oil and gas reservoirs.
Wang et al. (2025) studied this question.