A New Cost Effective Well Testing Methodology for Tight Gas Reservoirs

Abstract High breakdown pressure is one of the major challenges in deep tight gas reservoirs. In certain wells, achieving breakdown pressures within the completion tubular yield limit is not possible, and those zones may have to be abandoned without fracturing. Using thermally controlled fluid can lower the formation temperature and ultimately reduce the stresses of the tight gas reservoir formation near the wellbore. The objective of this study is to prove numerically that having a cooled near-wellbore region is a feasible and effective solution to reduce the breakdown pressure. An integrated hydraulic fracturing and reservoir simulator that has been developed at the University of Texas at Austin is utilized for this study. The simulator is a non-isothermal, multi-phase black-oil flow in reservoir, fracture, and wellbore domains. It was found that using thermally controlled fluid is effective in reducing breakdown pressure. Bottomhole Pressure (BHP) decreased by up to around 60% when the temperature of the near-wellbore region is reduced by 60 °F under the simulated conditions in this study. Injecting thermally controlled fluid did not only reduce the high breakdown pressure but also improve the hydraulic fractures efficiency and complexity. This technique is novel and has not been studied in depth in the literature. Utilizing thermally controlled fluid can be a cost effective solution to reduce high breakdown pressure in tight gas reservoirs.

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Well Testing Model of Multiple Fractured Horizontal Well with Consideration of Stress-Sensitivity and Variable Conductivity in Tight Gas Reservoirs

Mathematical Problems in Engineering ◽

10.1155/2018/1693184 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2018 ◽

pp. 1-13 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Zhongwei Wu ◽

Chuanzhi Cui ◽

Zhen Wang ◽

Yingfei Sui ◽

Peifeng Jia ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Early Time ◽

Stress Sensitivity ◽

Late Time ◽

Well Testing ◽

Tight Gas ◽

Gas Reservoirs ◽

Pressure Derivative ◽

Tight Gas Reservoirs ◽

Fractured Horizontal Wells ◽

Variable Conductivity

Multiple fractured horizontal wells have been widely used to develop unconventional tight gas reservoirs. Currently, many well testing models were established to study the performance of fractured horizontal wells in tight gas reservoirs. However, none of these models thoroughly takes stress-sensitivity of natural fractures and variable conductivity of artificial fractures into consideration. Based on the consideration of stress-sensitivity of natural fractures and variable conductivity of artificial fractures, a novel well testing model for fractured horizontal well in tight gas reservoirs is proposed. And the semianalytical solution of this new model is obtained by dividing the artificial fracture into different segments under the integrative methods of Laplace transformation, point source function, perturbation theory, superposition principle, and Stehfest numerical inversion. After validation, the semianalytical solution is consistent with that of Zerzar’s model (2004). Also, typical pressure and pressure derivative curves are plotted. According to typical curves, seven regimes can be derived, namely, bilinear flow, linear flow, early-time pseudoradial flow, biradial flow, intermediate-time pseudoradial flow, and pseudo-steady state interporosity flow, and late-time pseudoradial flow can be identified. In addition, this paper analyzes the impact on pressure and pressure derivative curves exerted by variable conductivity and stress-sensibility. The results show that variable conductivity mainly affects the early flow regimes, including bilinear flow, linear flow, and early-time radial flow, while the stress-sensitivity mainly affects the later flow regimes, including intermediate-time pseudoradial flow, pseudo-steady state interporosity flow, and late-time pseudoradial flow. The typical curves will ascend with the increasing of stress-sensitivity coefficient. The research provides a method for precise prediction of formation parameters and has a significant impact on the tight gas reservoir development.

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