Recovery Efficiency in Hydraulically Fractured Shale Gas Reservoirs

2017 ◽  
Vol 139 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxian B. Seales ◽  
Turgay Ertekin ◽  
John Yilin Wang
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Shale Gas ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Recovery Efficiency ◽  
British Petroleum ◽  
Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Shale Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Petroleum Company ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

At the end of 2015 the U.S. held 5.6% or approximately 369 Tcf of worldwide conventional natural gas proved reserves (British Petroleum Company, 2016, “BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2016,” British Petroleum Co., London). If unconventional gas sources are considered, natural gas reserves rise steeply to 2276 Tcf. Shale gas alone accounts for approximately 750 Tcf of the technically recoverable gas reserves in the U.S. (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2011, “Review of Emerging Resources: U.S. Shale Gas and Shale Oil plays,” U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, DC). However, this represents only a very small fraction of the gas associated with shale formations and is indicative of current technological limits. This manuscript addresses the question of recovery efficiency/recovery factor (RF) in fractured gas shales. Predictions of gas RF in fractured shale gas reservoirs are presented as a function of operating conditions, non-Darcy flow, gas slippage, proppant crushing, and proppant diagenesis. Recovery factors are simulated using a fully implicit, three-dimensional, two-phase, dual-porosity finite difference model that was developed specifically for this purpose. The results presented in this article provide clear insight into the range of recovery factors one can expect from a fractured shale gas formation, the impact that operation procedures and other phenomena have on these recovery factors, and the efficiency or inefficiency of contemporary shale gas production technology.

scholarly journals Investigation of the Main Factors During Shale-gas Production Using Grey Relational Analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongling Zhang ◽  
Jing Wang ◽  
Haiyong Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Shale Gas ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Fracture Conductivity ◽  
Matrix Permeability ◽  
Shale Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
Grey Relational ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Half Length

Shale gas is one of the primary types of unconventional reservoirs to be exploited in search for long-lasting resources. Production from shale gas reservoirs requires horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing to achieve the most economic production. However, plenty of parameters (e.g., fracture conductivity, fracture spacing, half-length, matrix permeability, and porosity,etc) have high uncertainty that may cause unexpected high cost. Therefore, to develop an efficient and practical method for quantifying uncertainty and optimizing shale-gas production is highly desirable. This paper focuses on analyzing the main factors during gas production, including petro-physical parameters, hydraulic fracture parameters, and work conditions on shale-gas production performances. Firstly, numerous key parameters of shale-gas production from the fourteen best-known shale gas reservoirs in the United States are selected through the correlation analysis. Secondly, a grey relational grade method is used to quantitatively estimate the potential of developing target shale gas reservoirs as well as the impact ranking of these factors. Analyses on production data of many shale-gas reservoirs indicate that the recovery efficiencies are highly correlated with the major parameters predicted by the new method. Among all main factors, the impact ranking of major factors, from more important to less important, is matrix permeability, fracture conductivity, fracture density of hydraulic fracturing, reservoir pressure, total organic content (TOC), fracture half-length, adsorbed gas, reservoir thickness, reservoir depth, and clay content. This work can provide significant insights into quantifying the evaluation of the development potential of shale gas reservoirs, the influence degree of main factors, and optimization of shale gas production.

Factors Affecting Hydraulically Fractured Well Performance in the Marcellus Shale Gas Reservoirs

2012 ◽  
Vol 135 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tunde Osholake ◽  
John Yilin Wang ◽  
Turgay Ertekin
Keyword(s):  
Hydraulic Fracturing ◽  
Shale Gas ◽  
Marcellus Shale ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Reservoir Compaction ◽  
Multistage Hydraulic Fracturing ◽  
Shale Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Fracturing Process

Development of shale gas reservoirs has become an integral part of the North American gas supply. The Marcellus shale reservoir contains large untapped natural gas resources and its proximity to high demand markets along the East Coast of the United State makes it an attractive target for energy development. The economic viability of such unconventional gas development hinges on the effective stimulation of extremely low permeability reservoir rocks. Horizontal wells with multistage hydraulic fracturing technique are the stimulation method of choice and have been successful in shale gas reservoirs. However, the fundamental science and engineering of the process are yet to be fully understood and hence the protocol that needs to be followed in the stimulation process needs to be optimized. There are several factors affecting the hydraulic fracture treatment and the postfracture gas production in shale gas reservoirs. In this paper, we used numerical reservoir simulation techniques and quantified the effect of the following pertinent factors: multiphase flow, proppant crushing, proppant diagenesis, reservoir compaction, and operating conditions on the performance of the designed multistage hydraulic fracturing process. The knowledge generated in this study is expected to enable engineers to better design fracture treatments and operators to better manage the wells in the Marcellus shale gas reservoir.

scholarly journals An Analytical Flow Model for Heterogeneous Multi-Fractured Systems in Shale Gas Reservoirs

Energies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 3422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Honghua Tao ◽  
Liehui Zhang ◽  
Qiguo Liu ◽  
Qi Deng ◽  
Man Luo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fractal Dimension ◽  
Anomalous Diffusion ◽  
Shale Gas ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Pressure Transient ◽  
Mass Fractal ◽  
Shale Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Mass Fractal Dimension ◽  
The Impact

The use of multiple hydraulically fractured horizontal wells has been proven to be an efficient and effective way to enable shale gas production. Meanwhile, analytical models represent a rapid evaluation method that has been developed to investigate the pressure-transient behaviors in shale gas reservoirs. Furthermore, fractal-anomalous diffusion, which describes a sub-diffusion process by a non-linear relationship with time and cannot be represented by Darcy’s law, has been noticed in heterogeneous porous media. In order to describe the pressure-transient behaviors in shale gas reservoirs more accurately, an improved analytical model based on the fractal-anomalous diffusion is established. Various diffusions in the shale matrix, pressure-dependent permeability, fractal geometry features, and anomalous diffusion in the stimulated reservoir volume region are considered. Type curves of pressure and pressure derivatives are plotted, and the effects of anomalous diffusion and mass fractal dimension are investigated in a sensitivity analysis. The impact of anomalous diffusion is recognized as two opposite aspects in the early linear flow regime and after that period, when it changes from 1 to 0.75. The smaller mass fractal dimension, which changes from 2 to 1.8, results in more pressure and a drop in the pressure derivative.

Numerical study of CO2 enhanced natural gas recovery and sequestration in shale gas reservoirs

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 406-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hai Sun ◽  
Jun Yao ◽  
Sun-hua Gao ◽  
Dong-yan Fan ◽  
Chen-chen Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Shale Gas ◽  
Numerical Study ◽  
Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Gas Recovery ◽  
Shale Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Natural Gas Recovery

scholarly journals Laboratory Investigation to Assess the Impact of Pore Pressure Decline and Confining Stress on Shale Gas Reservoirs

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-168
Author(s):  
Khalil Rehman Memon ◽  
◽  
Abdul Haque Tunio ◽  
Aftan Ahmed Mahesar ◽  
Hafiz-Ur-Rehman Memon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pore Pressure ◽  
Laboratory Investigation ◽  
Shale Gas ◽  
Confining Stress ◽  
Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Shale Gas Reservoirs ◽  
The Impact

scholarly journals An integrated workflow to perform reservoir and completion parametric study on a shale gas reservoir

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 1497-1510
Author(s):  
Mohamed Mahmoud ◽  
Ahmed Aleid ◽  
Abdulwahab Ali ◽  
Muhammad Shahzad Kamal
Keyword(s):  
Shale Gas ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Production Performance ◽  
Analytical Models ◽  
Well Performance ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Shale Gas Reservoirs ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe main objectives of this paper are to assess the long-term and short-term production based on both reservoir parameters and completion parameters of shale gas reservoirs. The effects of the reservoir parameters (permeability and the initial reservoir pressure) and completion parameters (fracture geometry, stimulated reservoir volume, etc.) on the short-term and long-term production of shale gas reservoirs were investigated. The currently used approach relies mainly on the decline curve analysis or analogs from a similar shale play to forecast the gas production from shale gas reservoirs. Both these approaches are not satisfactory because they are calibrated on short production history and do not assess the impact of uncertainty in reservoir and well data. For the first time, this study integrates initial production analysis, probabilistic evaluation, and sensitivity analysis to develop a robust workflow that will help in designing a sustainable production from shale gas plays. The reservoir and completion parameters were collected from different available resources, and the probability distributions of gathered uncertain data were defined. Then analytical models were used to forecast the production. Two well evaluation results are presented in this paper. Based on the results, completion parameters affected the short-term and long-term production, while the reservoir parameters controlled the long-term production. Long-term well performance was mainly controlled by the fracture half-length and fracture height, whereas other completion and reservoir parameters have an insignificant effect. Stimulation treatment design defines the initial well performance, while well placement decision defines well long-term performance. The findings of this study would help in better understanding the production performance of shale gas reservoirs, maximizing production by selecting effective completion parameters and considering the governing reservoir parameters. Moreover, it would help in accomplishing more effective stimulation treatments and define the potentiality of the basin.

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