scholarly journals Stimulation for geothermal wells in the Netherlands

Author(s):  
C.J. (Hans) de Pater ◽  
Josef R. Shaoul

Abstract Hydraulic fracturing is a long-established method of stimulating a well to improve the inflow or outflow potential. Hydraulic fracturing is the most successful stimulation method used by the oil and gas industry, and is also used for water injection and production wells around the world, even for drinking-water wells. Hydraulic fracturing creates a crack in the earth that is then filled with a highly conductive material (proppant). This fracture has a large inflow area compared to an unstimulated wellbore and provides a high-permeability path for the fluid to flow in or out of the reservoir. Hydraulic fracturing has a long history of being used in hot dry rock (HDR) geothermal applications since the 1980s (Murphy & Fehler, 1986). In those often very tight reservoirs, the aim is to create fracture networks that generate the reservoir flow capacity. In high-permeability formations, fracturing can potentially double the productivity of a well. In low-permeability formations, well performance can be increased by a factor of 5–10 in most cases. In this paper, we focus on two different scenarios of geothermal stimulation. The first is for permeable, porous formations where the heat exchange happens through the perfect contact between the fluid and the porous reservoir. Stimulation may then be necessary to create a small fracture if the pressure drop near the well is too large due to insufficient reservoir permeability. The other scenario is a formation at great depth, where the formation permeability is so extremely small that very long propped fractures would be needed to obtain sufficient flow or even where the porous system does not provide sufficient heat exchange but the heat exchange has to be facilitated by an artificial or stimulated fracture network: a so-called Enhanced Geothermal System. For porous, permeable formations we will present examples of fracture treatments that can increase the flow rate so that the economics of the project is improved. In some formations, stimulation is then a contingency in case of poorer than expected reservoir quality. A worst-case well with a large skin value of 20 can perform with stimulation like a base-case unstimulated well. In other formations, stimulation will be integral to well design in order to optimise the project performance. For those cases the Coefficient of Performance can be improved from 7 to 25 with the aid of stimulation. In Ultra-Deep Geothermal (UDG) recovery, the targets are reservoirs below 4000 m, because industrial heat demand requires a minimum temperature of 120°C up to 250°C. For an economic business case, the rate over a period of 15 to 25 years should be from 150 to 450 m3 h−1, depending on the boundary conditions. Shallower reservoirs in the Netherlands often show very high permeability, but at great depth the target layers could have very low permeability (Veldkamp et al., 2018). Several stimulation methods can be used, of which hydraulic fracture stimulation with water (proppantless) is the primary candidate. Other stimulation methods are propped fracturing in sandstone, acid fracturing in carbonates and thermal stimulation. For a geological play that is attractive for UDG in the Netherlands, the most likely stimulation method is with water fracturing, because propped fracturing would require a huge amount of proppant that is very costly. Based on analogues and conceptual designs, the expected flow rate is estimated under selected boundary conditions.

2019 ◽  
pp. 45-58
Author(s):  
A. A. Zakharov ◽  
S. V. Korotkov ◽  
A. I. Gritsenko ◽  
R. A. Ivakin ◽  
V. G. Griguletsky

The article reports the results of the analysis of the field prospecting activities of five exploratory wells at the Karmalinovskoye gas condensate field. We have found that the eastern part of the licensed area is characterized by the lack of fructuring in Paleozoic deposits, and the development of the productive deposit extends in the north-west direction. Hydraulic fracturing made it possible to get a stable gas and gas condensate flow rate in well № 4. This volume exceeds 3,8 times as large than flow rate in wells № 1 and № 2, which were tested after drilling without conducting hydraulic fracturing.


1995 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 646
Author(s):  
H. Crocker ◽  
J.H. Hann ◽  
P.B. Hall

Modern wireline test tools pump formation fluids to the wellbore at surface-controlled rates. The flowing fluid characteristics of pressure, temperature, density, flow rate, conductivity and resistivity are monitored at the surface in real time. The wireline test is thus matched, by the operator, to meet the formation deliverability and sanding conditions. This new wireline formation testing technique has been successfully applied in wells in the Perth and Carnarvon Basins. The types of reservoirs tested in these wells include low permeability sands, high permeability sands, thin sands and a sand producing reservoir. Results show the tool operations to be flexible and that it may be operated to meet the testing requirements of specific formation characteristics.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
I.Sh. Nasibullayev ◽  
E.Sh Nasibullaeva ◽  
O.V. Darintsev

The flow of a liquid through a tube deformed by a piezoelectric cell under a harmonic law is studied in this paper. Linear deformations are compared for the Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions on the contact surface of the tube and piezoelectric element. The flow of fluid through a deformed channel for two flow regimes is investigated: in a tube with one closed end due to deformation of the tube; for a tube with two open ends due to deformation of the tube and the differential pressure applied to the channel. The flow rate of the liquid is calculated as a function of the frequency of the deformations, the pressure drop and the physical parameters of the liquid.


Author(s):  
Svetlana Rudyk ◽  
Sami Al-Khamisi ◽  
Yahya Al-Wahaibi

AbstractFactors limiting foam injection for EOR application are exceptionally low rock permeability and exceedingly high salinity of the formation water. In this regard, foam formation using internal olefin sulfonate is investigated over a wide salinity range (1, 5, 8, 10, and 12% NaCl) through 10 mD limestone. The relationships between pressure drop (dP), apparent viscosity, liquid flow rate, total flow rate, salinity, foam texture, and length of foam drops at the outlet used as an indicator of viscosity are studied. Foaming is observed up to 12% NaCl, compared to a maximum of 8% NaCl in similar core-flooding experiments with 50 mD limestone and 255 mD sandstone. Thus, the salinity limit of foam formation has increased significantly due to the low permeability, which can be explained by the fact that the narrow porous system acts like a membrane with smaller holes. Compared to the increasing dP reported for highly permeable rocks, dP linearly decreases in almost the entire range of gas fraction (fg) at 1–10% NaCl. As fg increases, dP at higher total flow rate is higher at all salinities, but the magnitude of dP controls the dependence of apparent viscosity on total flow rate. Low dP is measured at 1% and 10% NaCl, and high dP is measured at 5, 8, and 12% NaCl. In the case of low dP, the apparent viscosity is higher at higher total flow rate with increasing gas fraction, but similar at two total flow rates with increasing liquid flow rate. In the case of high dP, the apparent viscosity is higher at lower total flow rate, both with an increase in the gas fraction and with an increase in the liquid flow rate. A linear correlation is found between dP or apparent viscosity and liquid flow rate, which defines it as a governing factor of foam flow and can be considered when modeling foam flow.


SPE Journal ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (04) ◽  
pp. 397-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mashhad Mousa Fahes ◽  
Abbas Firoozabadi

Summary Wettability of two types of sandstone cores, Berea (permeability on the order of 600 md), and a reservoir rock (permeability on the order of 10 md), is altered from liquid-wetting to intermediate gas-wetting at a high temperature of 140C. Previous work on wettability alteration to intermediate gas-wetting has been limited to 90C. In this work, chemicals previously used at 90C for wettability alteration are found to be ineffective at 140C. New chemicals are used which alter wettability at high temperatures. The results show that:wettability could be permanently altered from liquid-wetting to intermediate gas-wetting at high reservoir temperatures,wettability alteration has a substantial effect on increasing liquid mobility at reservoir conditions,wettability alteration results in improved gas productivity, andwettability alteration does not have a measurable effect on the absolute permeability of the rock for some chemicals. We also find the reservoir rock, unlike Berea, is not strongly water-wet in the gas/water/rock system. Introduction A sharp reduction in gas well deliverability is often observed in many low-permeability gas-condensate reservoirs even at very high reservoir pressure. The decrease in well deliverability is attributed to condensate accumulation (Hinchman and Barree 1985; Afidick et al. 1994) and water blocking (Engineer 1985; Cimolai et al. 1983). As the pressure drops below the dewpoint, liquid accumulates around the wellbore in high saturations, reducing gas relative permeability (Barnum et al. 1995; El-Banbi et al. 2000); the result is a decrease in the gas production rate. Several techniques have been used to increase gas well deliverability after the initial decline. Hydraulic fracturing is used to increase absolute permeability (Haimson and Fairhurst 1969). Solvent injection is implemented in order to remove the accumulated liquid (Al-Anazi et al. 2005). Gas deliverability often increases after the reduction of the condensate saturation around the wellbore. In a successful methanol treatment in Hatter's Pond field in Alabama (Al-Anazi et al. 2005), after the initial decline in well deliverability by a factor of three to five owing to condensate blocking, gas deliverability increased by a factor of two after the removal of water and condensate liquids from the near-wellbore region. The increased rates were, however, sustained for a period of 4 months only. The approach is not a permanent solution to the problem, because the condensate bank will form again. On the other hand, when hydraulic fracturing is used by injecting aqueous fluids, the cleanup of water accumulation from the formation after fracturing is essential to obtain an increased productivity. Water is removed in two phases: immiscible displacement by gas, followed by vaporization by the expanding gas flow (Mahadevan and Sharma 2003). Because of the low permeability and the wettability characteristics, it may take a long time to perform the cleanup; in some cases, as little as 10 to 15% of the water load could be recovered (Mahadevan and Sharma 2003; Penny et al. 1983). Even when the problem of water blocking is not significant, the accumulation of condensate around the fracture face when the pressure falls below dewpoint pressure could result in a reduction in the gas production rate (Economides et al. 1989; Sognesand 1991; Baig et al. 2005).


Author(s):  
Gennadiy Sandrakov ◽  
Andrii Hulianytskyi ◽  
Vladimir Semenov

Modeling of dynamic processes of diffusion and filtration of liquids in porous media are discussed. The media are formed by a large number of blocks with low permeability, and separated by a connected system of faults with high permeability. The modeling is based on solving initial boundary value problems for parabolic equations of diffusion and filtration in porous media. The structure of the media leads to the dependence of the equations on a small parameter. Assertions on the solvability and regularity of such problems and the corresponding homogenized convolution problems are considered. The statements are actual for the numerical solution of this problem with guaranteed accuracy that is necessary to model the considered processes.


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