Key words: Experimental analysis; Thermo-hydro-mechanical model; Extended-FEM; Fractured saturated porous media; plasma torch perforation. 1. INTRODUCTION Economical production volume in oil and gas industry means the maximum use of each well. Some applications are increasing well productivity, such as hydraulic fracturing, acid treatment, thermal treatment, horizontal drilling, etc. In addition, each of these methods has some disadvantages which may effect on the reservoir properties. The effect of each one of these methods is often limited by connections between wells and producing formation, which may be caused by low permeability, heterogeneity of reservoirs or insufficient length of each perforation. In upstream oil and gas industry, perforation operation is including a range of process to creating effective tunnels through the cemented behind the steel casing and rock texture to let the formation fluid flow into the well. During the past decades the petroleum companies has been applying the wellbore perforation method introduced in the 19 century which is using explosive shaped charges. This conventional method crushes the rock matrix and produces fine grain particles which might plug or decrease the pore size which are leads to formation damage and hence remarkable permeability reduction in the rock formation. These disadvantages can increases the wellbore skin and consequently decrease production. Petroleum companies has been looking for a decades to find non-explosive and non-damage methods that not only create perforation holes effectively but also minimize among of formation damage.In a saturated porous media, the Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical (THM) modeling in coupled form of displacement, pressure and temperature is one of the most challenging fields in the geotechnical and environmental engineering. Isothermal and non-isothermal modeling of saturated-unsaturated porous media has been investigated by several ARMA 14-6991 Plasma torch perforation to route hydraulic fracturing operation in unconventional reservoirs M. Bazargan and M. Soliman Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, USA M. Habibpour and A. Rezaei Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, USA Copyright 2014 ARMA, American Rock Mechanics Association This paper was prepared for presentation at the 48 th US Rock Mechanics / Geomechanics Symposium held in Minneapolis, MN, USA, 1-4 June 2014. This paper was selected for presentation at the symposium by an ARMA Technical Program Committee based on a technical and critical review of the paper by a minimum of two technical reviewers. The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any position of ARMA, its officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper for commercial purposes without the written consent of ARMA is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 200 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgement of where and by whom the paper was presented. ABSTRACT: Recent advances in high power plasma torch technology provide an apparatus to replace the conventional perforation methods in oil and gas wells. High power plasma torches are capable of cutting and removing rocks textures efficiently and they might be considered as one of the appropriate substitutions for current shaped charge perforation methods. According to its advantages the conventional shaped charge methods that one the important one is increasing permeability considerably and no need to have costly re-perforation operations to decreasing new formation damage named by perforation skin. Plasma torch perforation is gone along with heat flux generation. As the temperature increases during plasma torch operation, thermal energy accumulates the matrix expansion. This expansion generate thermal stresses induce the rock texture. Furthermore, thermal stresses exceeds the rock strength, thermal fractures will form in texture that mainly depend on rock thermal properties, pore size distribution, applied thermal stresses and confining and pore pressures. In this paper, the results of experimental studies on implementation of high power plasma torch in perforation and fracture initiation in oil and gas wells is presented. Also, numerically analyzing of generating these thermal fractures during plasma torch perforation will facilitate hydraulic fracturing operation.