scholarly journals Chemical Potential-Based Modeling of Shale Gas Transport

Geofluids ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Jisheng Kou ◽  
Lingyun Chen ◽  
Amgad Salama ◽  
Jianchao Cai
Keyword(s):  
Shale Gas ◽  
Gas Flow ◽  
Chemical Potential ◽  
Potential Gradient ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Free Energy Density ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Theoretical Criterion ◽  
Proposed Model

Shale gas plays an increasingly important role in the current energy industry. Modeling of gas flow in shale media has become a crucial and useful tool to estimate shale gas production accurately. The second law of thermodynamics provides a theoretical criterion to justify any promising model, but it has been never fully considered in the existing models of shale gas. In this paper, a new mathematical model of gas flow in shale formations is proposed, which uses gas density instead of pressure as the primary variable. A distinctive feature of the model is to employ chemical potential gradient rather than pressure gradient as the primary driving force. This allows to prove that the proposed model obeys an energy dissipation law, and thus, the second law of thermodynamics is satisfied. Moreover, on the basis of energy factorization approach for the Helmholtz free energy density, an efficient, linear, energy stable semi-implicit numerical scheme is proposed for the proposed model. Numerical experiments are also performed to validate the model and numerical method.

scholarly journals Two-Phase Flow Model for Numerical Investigation of Impact of Water Retention on Shale Gas Production

Geofluids ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Ershe Xu ◽  
Lingjie Yu ◽  
Ming Fan ◽  
Tianyu Chen ◽  
Zhejun Pan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Shale Gas ◽  
Gas Flow ◽  
Two Phase Flow ◽  
Water Injection ◽  
Injection Pressure ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Phase Flow ◽  
Injection Time ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Proposed Model

In this work, a triple-porosity, two-phase flow model was established to fill the knowledge gap of previous models focusing on gas production characteristics while ignoring the impacts of water injection. The proposed model considers the water flow in the fracture systems and clay minerals and the gas flow in the organic matter, inorganic pore, and fracture systems. The proposed model is solved using a finite element approach with COMSOL Multiphysics (Version 5.6) and verified with field data. Then, the evolutions of the intrinsic and relative permeabilities during water injection and gas production are examined. Furthermore, the impacts of water injection time and pressure are investigated. Good verification results are obtained; the goodness-of-fit value is 0.92, indicating that the proposed model can replicate both the water stimulation and the gas production stages. The relative gas permeability declines during water injection but recovers in the gas depletion stage. Furthermore, the intrinsic permeability increases during the water injection stage but decreases during the gas production stage. A higher water injection pressure and longer injection time would enlarge the intrinsic permeability, thus improving flow capacity. However, it would reduce gas relative permeability, thereby hindering gas flow. The shale gas production characteristic is controlled by the two abovementioned competing mechanisms. There exists a perfect combination of water injection pressure and injection time for achieving the maximum profitability of a shale gas well. This work can give a better understanding of the two-phase flow process in shale reservoirs and shed light on the field application of hydraulic fracturing.

scholarly journals Causality and stability conditions of a conformal charged fluid

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Farid Taghinavaz
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Potential ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Dense Medium ◽  
Wave Number ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Stability Conditions ◽  
Charged Fluid ◽  
Large Wave ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Large Wave Number

Abstract In this paper, I study the conditions imposed on a normal charged fluid so that the causality and stability criteria hold for this fluid. I adopt the newly developed General Frame (GF) notion in the relativistic hydrodynamics framework which states that hydrodynamic frames have to be fixed after applying the stability and causality conditions. To do this, I take a charged conformal matter in the flat and 3 + 1 dimension to analyze better these conditions. The causality condition is applied by looking to the asymptotic velocity of sound hydro modes at the large wave number limit and stability conditions are imposed by looking to the imaginary parts of hydro modes as well as the Routh-Hurwitz criteria. By fixing some of the transports, the suitable spaces for other ones are derived. I observe that in a dense medium having a finite U(1) charge with chemical potential μ0, negative values for transports appear and the second law of thermodynamics has not ruled out the existence of such values. Sign of scalar transports are not limited by any constraints and just a combination of vector transports is limited by the second law of thermodynamic. Also numerically it is proved that the most favorable region for transports $$ {\tilde{\upgamma}}_{1,2}, $$ γ ˜ 1 , 2 , coefficients of the dissipative terms of the current, is of negative values.

scholarly journals Numerical Simulation of Shale Gas Multiscale Seepage Mechanism-Coupled Stress Sensitivity

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xun Yan ◽  
Jing Sun ◽  
Dehua Liu
Keyword(s):  
Shale Gas ◽  
Gas Flow ◽  
Gas Transport ◽  
Sensitivity Coefficient ◽  
Stress Sensitivity ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Molecular Flow ◽  
Adsorption Phenomenon ◽  
Gas Seepage ◽  
The Impact

The complexity of the gas transport mechanism in microfractures and nanopores is caused by the feature of multiscale and multiphysics. Figuring out the flow mechanism is of great significance for the efficient development of shale gas. In this paper, an apparent permeability model which covers continue, slip, transition, and molecular flow and geomechanical effect was presented. Additionally, a mathematical model comprising multiscale, geomechanics, and adsorption phenomenon was proposed to characterize gas flow in the shale reservoir. The aim of this paper is to investigate some important impacts in the process of gas transportation, which includes the shale stress sensitivity, adsorption phenomenon, and reservoir porosity. The results reveal that the performance of the multistage fractured horizontal well is strongly influenced by stress sensitivity coefficient. The cumulative gas production will decrease sharply when the shale gas reservoir stress sensitivity coefficient increases. In addition, the adsorption phenomenon has an influence on shale gas seepage and sorption capacity; however, the effect of adsorption is very weak in the early gas transport period, and the impact of later will increase. Moreover, shale porosity also greatly affects the shale gas transportation.

scholarly journals History Matching and Forecast of Shale Gas Production Considering Hydraulic Fracture Closure

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 1634 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juhyun Kim ◽  
Youngjin Seo ◽  
Jihoon Wang ◽  
Youngsoo Lee
Keyword(s):  
Shale Gas ◽  
Hydraulic Fracture ◽  
History Matching ◽  
Gas Flow ◽  
Fluid Pressure ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Hydraulic Fractures ◽  
Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Shale Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Fracture Closure

Most shale gas reservoirs have extremely low permeability. Predicting their fluid transport characteristics is extremely difficult due to complex flow mechanisms between hydraulic fractures and the adjacent rock matrix. Recently, studies adopting the dynamic modeling approach have been proposed to investigate the shape of the flow regime between induced and natural fractures. In this study, a production history matching was performed on a shale gas reservoir in Canada’s Horn River basin. Hypocenters and densities of the microseismic signals were used to identify the hydraulic fracture distributions and the stimulated reservoir volume. In addition, the fracture width decreased because of fluid pressure reduction during production, which was integrated with the dynamic permeability change of the hydraulic fractures. We also incorporated the geometric change of hydraulic fractures to the 3D reservoir simulation model and established a new shale gas modeling procedure. Results demonstrate that the accuracy of the predictions for shale gas flow improved. We believe that this technique will enrich the community’s understanding of fluid flows in shale gas reservoirs.

A Generalized Framework Model for the Simulation of Gas Production in Unconventional Gas Reservoirs

SPE Journal ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (05) ◽  
pp. 845-857 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Shu Wu ◽  
Jianfang Li ◽  
Didier-Yu Ding ◽  
Cong Wang ◽  
Yuan Di
Keyword(s):  
Shale Gas ◽  
Gas Flow ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Unconventional Reservoirs ◽  
Hydraulic Fractures ◽  
Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Unconventional Gas ◽  
Shale Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Framework Model ◽  
Unconventional Gas Reservoirs

Summary Unconventional gas resources from tight-sand and shale gas reservoirs have received great attention in the past decade around the world because of their large reserves and technical advances in developing these resources. As a result of improved horizontal-drilling and hydraulic-fracturing technologies, progress is being made toward commercial gas production from such reservoirs, as demonstrated in the US. However, understandings and technologies needed for the effective development of unconventional reservoirs are far behind the industry needs (e.g., gas-recovery rates from those unconventional resources remain very low). There are some efforts in the literature on how to model gas flow in shale gas reservoirs by use of various approaches—from modified commercial simulators to simplified analytical solutions—leading to limited success. Compared with conventional reservoirs, gas flow in ultralow-permeability unconventional reservoirs is subject to more nonlinear, coupled processes, including nonlinear adsorption/desorption, non-Darcy flow (at both high flow rate and low flow rate), strong rock/fluid interaction, and rock deformation within nanopores or microfractures, coexisting with complex flow geometry and multiscaled heterogeneity. Therefore, quantifying flow in unconventional gas reservoirs has been a significant challenge, and the traditional representative-elementary-volume- (REV) based Darcy's law, for example, may not be generally applicable. In this paper, we discuss a generalized mathematical framework model and numerical approach for unconventional-gas-reservoir simulation. We present a unified framework model able to incorporate known mechanisms and processes for two-phase gas flow and transport in shale gas or tight gas formations. The model and numerical scheme are based on generalized flow models with unstructured grids. We discuss the numerical implementation of the mathematical model and show results of our model-verification effort. Specifically, we discuss a multidomain, multicontinuum concept for handling multiscaled heterogeneity and fractures [i.e., the use of hybrid modeling approaches to describe different types and scales of fractures or heterogeneous pores—from the explicit modeling of hydraulic fractures and the fracture network in stimulated reservoir volume (SRV) to distributed natural fractures, microfractures, and tight matrix]. We demonstrate model application to quantify hydraulic fractures and transient flow behavior in shale gas reservoirs.

scholarly journals Well Performance Simulation and Parametric Study for Different Refracturing Scenarios in Shale Reservoir

Geofluids ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Huang ◽  
Lan Ren ◽  
Jinzhou Zhao ◽  
Zhiqiang Li ◽  
Junli Wang
Keyword(s):  
Shale Gas ◽  
Hydraulic Fracture ◽  
Sichuan Basin ◽  
Gas Flow ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Parameters Optimization ◽  
Well Performance ◽  
Fracture Permeability ◽  
Stimulated Reservoir Volume ◽  
Gas Recovery

Refracturing is an encouraging way to uplift gas flow rate and ultimate gas recovery from shale gas wells. A numerical model, considering the stimulated reservoir volume and multiscale gas transport, is applied to simulate the gas production from a refractured shale gas well. The model is verified against field data from a shale gas reservoir in Sichuan Basin. Two refracturing scenarios: refracturing through existing perforation clusters and refracturing through new perforation zones, are included in the simulation work. Three years after production is determined to be the optimum time for refracturing based on the evolution analysis of reservoir pressure, effective stress, fracture permeability, and gas recovery. The role that the hydraulic fracture conductivity and hydraulic fracture half-length play in gas production for different refracturing cases is explored. Pumping parameters of the refracturing job in Sichuan Basin are discussed combining with sensitivity analysis, and suggestions for pumping parameters optimization are proposed.

EDFM-based Multi-Continuum Shale Gas Simulation with Low Velocity Non-Darcy Water Flow Effect

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Jiang ◽  
John Killough ◽  
Linkai Li ◽  
Xiaona Cui ◽  
Jin Tang
Keyword(s):  
Water Flow ◽  
Shale Gas ◽  
Gas Flow ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Knudsen Diffusion ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Darcy Flow ◽  
Low Velocity ◽  
Water Imbibition ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The exploitation of shale gas has attracted extensive attention in industry and academia. Multi-scale gas transportation mechanisms in matrix and fractures have been well studied. However, due to the presence of water originating from both fracking fluids and connate water, shale gas production is also greatly affected by water imbibition and flowback, of which the processes have not been thoroughly analyzed. This paper aims at presenting a comprehensive multi-continuum multi-component model to characterize the complicated shale gas flow behaviors as well as the impact of non-Darcy water flow on shale gas production. A two-phase numerical simulator is built up with multi-continuum settings. Shale matrix is split into organic and inorganic matters while natural and hydraulic fractures are modeled using an embedded discrete fracture model (EDFM). Fracture closure and elongation are modeled using a dynamic gridding approach. Different transportation mechanisms are considered to describe gas flow in shale, including Knudsen diffusion, ab/desorption, and convection. The low-velocity non-Darcy flow of water is used in inorganic pores to analyze the effect of water flow. A pre-stage model based on pumping history is simulated firstly before production starts. This serves as an initialization step to model fracking fluid imbibition and early-stage water flowback. This pre-stage simulation gives out more precise pressure and saturation profiles than the conventional non-equilibrium initialization method, especially in enhanced pore volumes and fractures. Based upon simulation results from the production period, Langmuir isotherm absorption has shown a massive impact on gas flow in shale, and Knudsen diffusion weights highest among transport mechanisms. Water non-Darcy flow better benefits in simulating both early-stage water flowback and production process compared with Darcy flow, which gives us a new explanation on the low flowback efficiency in real shale gas operations. Studies on early-stage water flowback also show that the flowback affects saturation distribution, which has a strong relationship with gas production and shall not be ignored. This work establishes a novel method to simulate and analyze shale gas production. It considers multiple and complex flow mechanisms and gives out better estimates of water flux. It is also used to initialize a model for pumping water imbibition and early-stage flowback, which can be used as technical resources for analyzing and simulating unconventional plays.

scholarly journals The Impact of the Geometry of the Effective Propped Volume on the Economic Performance of Shale Gas Well Production

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 2475
Author(s):  
Andres Soage ◽  
Ruben Juanes ◽  
Ignasi Colominas ◽  
Luis Cueto-Felgueroso
Keyword(s):  
Shale Gas ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
Gas Flow ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Well Production ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
Decline Curves ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
The Impact

We analyze the effect that the geometry of the Effective Propped Volume (EPV) has on the economic performance of hydrofractured multistage shale gas wells. We study the sensitivity of gas production to the EPV’s geometry and we compare it with the sensitivity to other parameters whose relevance in the production of shale gas is well known: porosity, kerogen content and permeability induced in the Stimulated Recovery Volume (SRV). To understand these sensitivities, we develop a high-fidelity 3D numerical model of shale gas flow that allows determining both the Estimated Ultimate Recovery (EUR) of gas as well as analyzing the decline curves of gas production (DCA). We find that the geometry of the EPV plays an important role in the economic performance and gas production of shale wells. The relative contribution of EPV geometry is comparable to that of induced permeability of the SRV or formation porosity. Our results may lead to interesting technological developments in the oild and gas industry that improve economic efficiency in shale gas production.

scholarly journals Analysis of the Influencing Factors on the Well Performance in Shale Gas Reservoir

Geofluids ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheng Dai ◽  
Liang Xue ◽  
Weihong Wang ◽  
Xiang Li
Keyword(s):  
Shale Gas ◽  
Gas Flow ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Recovery Factor ◽  
Natural Fracture ◽  
Total Production ◽  
Gas Reservoir ◽  
Free Gas ◽  
Shale Gas Reservoir ◽  
Adsorbed Gas

Due to the ultralow permeability of shale gas reservoirs, stimulating the reservoir formation by using hydraulic fracturing technique and horizontal well is required to create the pathway of gas flow so that the shale gas can be recovered in an economically viable manner. The hydraulic fractured formations can be divided into two regions, stimulated reservoir volume (SRV) region and non-SRV region, and the produced shale gas may exist as free gas or adsorbed gas under the initial formation condition. Investigating the recovery factor of different types of shale gas in different region may assist us to make more reasonable development strategies. In this paper, we build a numerical simulation model, which has the ability to take the unique shale gas flow mechanisms into account, to quantitatively describe the gas production characteristics in each region based on the field data collected from a shale gas reservoir in Sichuan Basin in China. The contribution of the free gas and adsorbed gas to the total production is analyzed dynamically through the entire life of the shale gas production by adopting a component subdivision method. The effects of the key reservoir properties, such as shale matrix, secondary natural fracture network, and primary hydraulic fractures, on the recovery factor are also investigated.

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