System, method and apparatus for reduced water usage for fracturing hydrocarbon wells with three-dimensional imaging of the formation from a single borehole

A method of reducing water consumption for fracturing a geologic formation surrounding a borehole, the method comprising:

• imaging, using a downhole tool within the borehole, the geologic formation surrounding the borehole to obtain imagery of the geologic formation along a certain extent of the borehole, wherein the imaging comprises focusing an outbound acoustic energy, launched from the downhole tool, on a volume within the geologic formation spaced away from the borehole, the focusing creating a virtual point source from which a return acoustic energy propagates, wherein the volume of the virtual point source experiences a pressure change due to constructive wave interference of acoustic waves at the volume, and receiving the return acoustic energy, wherein the focusing of the outbound acoustic energy creates the virtual point source using beamforming that emits the outbound acoustic energy from the downhole tool;
• analyzing the imagery to identify certain zones based on features in the geologic formation revealed by the imagery, the analyzing of the imagery results in identified zones;
• identifying natural fractures in the geologic formation within the identified zones, the identifying results in identified fractures;
• selecting regions in the borehole based upon the identified fractures to create selected regions, wherein the selected regions collectively represent less than the certain extent of the borehole;
• and
• determining one or more individual fracturing locations corresponding to each selected region, so that fracturing the borehole at each respective fracturing location, without fracturing elsewhere along the certain extent of the borehole, results in fracturing only the selected regions of the borehole, thereby reducing water consumption during fracturing operation.

A method of fracturing a hydrocarbon deposit, comprising:

• imaging a geologic formation surrounding a borehole using a downhole tool within the borehole, the imaging along an axial length of the borehole within the geologic formation, and the imaging creates an image indicative of natural fractures within the geologic formation, wherein the imaging comprises focusing an outbound acoustic energy, launched from the downhole tool, on a volume within the geologic formation spaced away from the borehole, and the focusing creates a virtual point source from which a return acoustic energy propagates, wherein the volume of the virtual point source experiences a pressure change due to constructive wave interference of acoustic waves at the volume, and receiving the return acoustic energy, wherein the focusing of the outbound acoustic energy creates the virtual point source using beamforming that emits the outbound acoustic energy from the downhole tool;
• identifying, within the image, fractures conducive to hydrocarbon production;
• correlating the fractures conducive to hydrocarbon production to fracture zones along the axial length, wherein each fracture zone spans a portion of the axial length, and collectively the fracture zones are less than the axial length;
• and
• hydraulic fracturing one or more of the fracture zones and refraining from hydraulic fracturing at least some remaining zones outside the fracture zones.