Probabilistic estimation of fracture transmissivity from Wellbore hydraulic data accounting for depth-dependent anisotropic rock stress

The results show that the probabilistic approach, relying on hydraulic data alone, may underestimate the true variability in fracture transmissivities, since the typically vertical boreholes entail a sampling bias towards horizontal fractures that are predominantly subject to vertical stress. The suggested method helps to account for the true underlying three-dimensional variability that is incompletely resolved by using the hydraulic borehole data alone. This method is likely to have the largest impact at low stress-levels, in strongly anisotropic stress-fields, for borehole directions parallel to one principal stress, and for fracture network geometries characterized by sets orthogonal to the three principal stresses.