Production performance of hydraulic fractures in tight gas sands, a numerical simulation approach. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering

Hydraulically fractured tight gas reservoirs are one of the most common unconventional gas sources being produced today, and will be a regular source of gas in the future. The extremely low permeability of tight gas sands leads to inaccuracy of conventional build-up and draw-down well test results....

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Main Authors: Ostojic, Jakov, Rezaee, R, Bahrami, Hassan
Format: Journal Article
Published: Elsevier BV 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/28075
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author Ostojic, Jakov
Rezaee, R
Bahrami, Hassan
author_facet Ostojic, Jakov
Rezaee, R
Bahrami, Hassan
author_sort Ostojic, Jakov
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Hydraulically fractured tight gas reservoirs are one of the most common unconventional gas sources being produced today, and will be a regular source of gas in the future. The extremely low permeability of tight gas sands leads to inaccuracy of conventional build-up and draw-down well test results. This is primarily due to the increased time required for transient flow in tight gas sands to reach pseudo-steady state condition. To increase accuracy, well tests for tight gas reservoirs must be run for longer periods of time which is in most cases not economically viable. The large amount of downtime required to conduct well tests in tight sands makes them far less economical than conventional reservoirs, which leads to the need for accurate simulation of tight gas reservoir well tests. This paper presents simulation results of a 3-D hydraulically fractured tight gas model created using Eclipse software. The key aims are to analyze the effect of differing fracture orientation, number and length. The focus of the simulation runs will be on the effect of hydraulic fracture orientation and length. The results will be compared to simulation runs without the abovementioned factors to determine their effects on production rates and well performance analysis. All results are plotted alongside an un-fractured tight gas scenario in order to put the hydraulic fracture performance in perspective. Key findings from this work include an approximately linear relationship between initial gas rate and the number of hydraulic fractures intersecting the wellbore. In addition, fracture length is found to have less of an impact on initial gas rate compared to number of fractures intersecting the wellbore, for comparable total fracture volumes.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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publishDate 2012
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-280752019-02-19T04:28:17Z Production performance of hydraulic fractures in tight gas sands, a numerical simulation approach. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering Ostojic, Jakov Rezaee, R Bahrami, Hassan Tight gas sands Production performance Numerical simulation approach Hydraulic fractures Hydraulically fractured tight gas reservoirs are one of the most common unconventional gas sources being produced today, and will be a regular source of gas in the future. The extremely low permeability of tight gas sands leads to inaccuracy of conventional build-up and draw-down well test results. This is primarily due to the increased time required for transient flow in tight gas sands to reach pseudo-steady state condition. To increase accuracy, well tests for tight gas reservoirs must be run for longer periods of time which is in most cases not economically viable. The large amount of downtime required to conduct well tests in tight sands makes them far less economical than conventional reservoirs, which leads to the need for accurate simulation of tight gas reservoir well tests. This paper presents simulation results of a 3-D hydraulically fractured tight gas model created using Eclipse software. The key aims are to analyze the effect of differing fracture orientation, number and length. The focus of the simulation runs will be on the effect of hydraulic fracture orientation and length. The results will be compared to simulation runs without the abovementioned factors to determine their effects on production rates and well performance analysis. All results are plotted alongside an un-fractured tight gas scenario in order to put the hydraulic fracture performance in perspective. Key findings from this work include an approximately linear relationship between initial gas rate and the number of hydraulic fractures intersecting the wellbore. In addition, fracture length is found to have less of an impact on initial gas rate compared to number of fractures intersecting the wellbore, for comparable total fracture volumes. 2012 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/28075 10.1016/j.petrol.2011.11.002 Elsevier BV fulltext
spellingShingle Tight gas sands
Production performance
Numerical simulation approach
Hydraulic fractures
Ostojic, Jakov
Rezaee, R
Bahrami, Hassan
Production performance of hydraulic fractures in tight gas sands, a numerical simulation approach. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering
title Production performance of hydraulic fractures in tight gas sands, a numerical simulation approach. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering
title_full Production performance of hydraulic fractures in tight gas sands, a numerical simulation approach. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering
title_fullStr Production performance of hydraulic fractures in tight gas sands, a numerical simulation approach. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering
title_full_unstemmed Production performance of hydraulic fractures in tight gas sands, a numerical simulation approach. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering
title_short Production performance of hydraulic fractures in tight gas sands, a numerical simulation approach. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering
title_sort production performance of hydraulic fractures in tight gas sands, a numerical simulation approach. journal of petroleum science and engineering
topic Tight gas sands
Production performance
Numerical simulation approach
Hydraulic fractures
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/28075