**2. Reservoir stimulation strategies**

Reservoir stimulation is simply described as the induction of formations to improve hydrocarbon production. This is can be accomplished by repairing the formation damage, especially at the vicinity of the wellbore, and/or changing the natural state of the rock or fluids to increase reservoir productivity. The advent in oil and gas production from unconventional reserves has given rise to the development of several stimulation approaches. This inventory (of methods) has expanded over the years, with considerable improvements made to boost the effectiveness and efficiency of a sizeable number of them. Some techniques are focused on repairing damages that have impaired the conductivity of rocks surrounding the wellbore, and some artificially create additional channels to enable easy flow of reservoir fluids towards the wellbore, while others alter the properties of reservoir fluids to make them less adhesive to host rocks and to encourage nonviscous-like fluid flow into wellbores. Numerous stimulation techniques are currently employed in

*Introductory Chapter: Developments in the Exploitation of Unconventional Hydrocarbon… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86625* 

practice. These include hydraulic fracturing, surfactant flooding and treatment, water imbibition, acidisation, thermal stimulation and treatment and electrokinetics potential.
