Abstract
Horizontal wells and hydraulic fracturing technologies are the only way that makes commercial production from the low and ultra-low permeability unconventional plays possible. The development of analytical and semi-analytical tools to analyze transient behavior of multi-fractured horizontal gas wells have been largely biased towards solving the simplified problem of one-dimensional (1D) Cartesian gas flow in matrix domain, which are only applicable to the production from infinite-conductivity fractures. This study presents a novel semi-analytical method for transient behavior analysis of horizontal gas wells producing from finite-conductivity fractures. Unlike the available transient analysis tools for finite-conductivity fractures which are developed based on empirical and approximate solution, the proposed solution is rigorously derived by solving the governing gas diffusivity equations written for gas flow in two contiguous regions of matrix and fracture simultaneously. Nonlinear, pressure-dependent gas properties remaining in pseudopressure-based diffusivity equations—namely viscosity and compressibility—are rigorously and straightforwardly captured in both fracture and matrix systems. The validity of proposed solution is verified against commercial numerical simulator (COMSOL Multiphysics®) for a series of synthetic cases considering constant and variable -rate production constraints. The case studies presented in this paper also showcase the applicability of proposed solution to the analysis of transient behavior of multi-fractured horizontal gas wells in shale plays under the following two state-of-the-art interpretations: 1) production from finite-conductivity hydraulic fractures in a single-porosity matrix; and 2) production from infinite-conductivity hydraulic fractures in a naturally-fractured matrix.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 117119 |
Journal | Fuel |
Volume | 266 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 15 2020 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General Chemical Engineering
- Fuel Technology
- Energy Engineering and Power Technology
- Organic Chemistry