Ensemble Based Characterization and History Matching of Naturally Fractured Tight/Shale Gas Reservoirs

Author(s):  
Parham Ghods ◽  
Dongxiao Zhang
SPE Journal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (05) ◽  
pp. 1883-1898 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanbin Zhang ◽  
Neha Bansal ◽  
Yusuke Fujita ◽  
Akhil Datta-Gupta ◽  
Michael J. King ◽  
...  

Summary Current industry practice for characterization and assessment of unconventional reservoirs mostly uses empirical decline-curve analysis or analytic rate- and pressure-transient analysis. High-resolution numerical simulation with local perpendicular bisector (PEBI) grids and global corner-point grids has also been used to examine complex nonplanar fracture geometry, interaction between hydraulic and natural fractures, and implications for the well performance. Although the analytic tools require many simplified assumptions, numerical-simulation techniques are computationally expensive and do not provide the more-geometric understanding derived from the depth-of-investigation (DOI) and drainage-volume calculations. We propose a novel approach for rapid field-scale performance assessment of shale-gas reservoirs. Our proposed approach is dependent on a high-frequency asymptotic solution of the diffusivity equation in heterogeneous reservoirs and serves as a bridge between simplified analytical tools and complex numerical simulation. The high-frequency solution leads to the Eikonal equation (Paris and Hurd 1969), which is solved for a “diffusive time of flight” (DTOF) that governs the propagation of the “pressure front” in the reservoir. The Eikonal equation can be solved by use of the fast-marching method (FMM) to determine the DTOF, which generalizes the concept of DOI to heterogeneous and fractured reservoirs. It provides an efficient means to calculate drainage volume, pressure depletion, and well performance and can be significantly faster than conventional numerical simulation. More importantly, in a manner analogous to streamline simulation, the DTOF can also be used as a spatial coordinate to reduce the 3D diffusivity equation to a 1D equation, leading to a comprehensive simulator for rapid performance prediction of shale-gas reservoirs. The speed and versatility of our proposed method makes it ideally suited for high-resolution reservoir characterization through integration of static and dynamic data. The major advantages of our proposed approach are its simplicity, intuitive appeal, and computational efficiency. We demonstrate the power and utility of our method by use of a field example that involves history matching, uncertainty analysis, and performance assessment of a shale-gas reservoir in east Texas. A sensitivity study is first performed to systematically identify the “heavy hitters” affecting the well performance. This is followed by history matching and an uncertainty analysis to identify the fracture parameters and the stimulated-reservoir volume. A comparison of model predictions with the actual well performance shows that our approach is able to reliably predict the pressure depletion and rate decline.


SPE Journal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (02) ◽  
pp. 589-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Yu ◽  
Kamy Sepehrnoori ◽  
Tadeusz W. Patzek

Summary Production from shale-gas reservoirs plays an important role in natural-gas supply in the United States. Horizontal drilling and multistage hydraulic fracturing are the two key enabling technologies for the economic development of these shale-gas reservoirs. It is believed that gas in shale reservoirs is mainly composed of free gas within fractures and pores and adsorbed gas in organic matter (kerogen). It is generally assumed in the literature that the monolayer Langmuir isotherm describes gas-adsorption behavior in shale-gas reservoirs. However, in this work, we analyzed four experimental measurements of methane adsorption from the Marcellus Shale core samples that deviate from the Langmuir isotherm, but obey the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) isotherm. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time to find that methane adsorption in a shale-gas reservoir behaves similar to multilayer adsorption. Consequently, investigation of this specific gas-desorption effect is important for accurate evaluation of well performance and completion effectiveness in shale-gas reservoirs on the basis of the BET isotherm. The difference in calculating original gas in place (OGIP) on the basis of both isotherms is discussed. We also performed history matching with one production well from the Marcellus Shale and evaluated the contribution of gas desorption to the well's performance. History matching shows that gas adsorption obeying the BET isotherm contributes more to overall gas recovery than gas adsorption obeying the Langmuir isotherm, especially at early time in production. This work provides better understanding of gas desorption in shale-gas reservoirs and updates our current analytical and numerical models for simulation of shale-gas production.


2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siavash Nejadi ◽  
Juliana Yuk Wing Leung ◽  
Japan J Trivedi ◽  
Claudio Juan Jose Virues

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 1634 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juhyun Kim ◽  
Youngjin Seo ◽  
Jihoon Wang ◽  
Youngsoo Lee

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.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Qiwei Li ◽  
Rui Yong ◽  
Jianfa Wu ◽  
Cheng Chang ◽  
Chuxi Liu ◽  
...  

Abstract Optimum well spacing is an essential element for the economic development of shale gas reservoirs. We present an integrated assisted history matching (AHM) and embedded discrete fracture model (EDFM) workflow for well spacing optimization by considering multiple uncertainty realizations and economic analysis. This workflow is applied in shale gas reservoirs of the Sichuan Basin in China. Firstly, we applied the AHM to calibrate ten matrix and fracture uncertain parameters using a real shale-gas well, including matrix permeability, matrix porosity, three relative permeability parameters, fracture height, fracture half-length, fracture width, fracture conductivity, and fracture water saturation. There are 71 history matching solutions obtained to quantify their posterior distributions. Integrating these uncertainty realizations with five well spacing scenarios, which are 517 ft, 620 ft, 775 ft, 1030 ft, and 1550 ft, we generated 355 cases to perform production simulations using the EDFM method coupled with a reservoir simulator. Then, P10, P50, and P90 values of gas estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) for different well spacing scenarios were determined. Additionally, the degradation of EUR with and without well interference was analyzed. Next, we calculated the NPVs of all simulation cases and trained the K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) proxy, which describes the relationship between the NPV and all uncertain matrix and fracture parameters and varying well spacing. After that, the KNN proxy was used to maximize the NPV under the current operation cost and natural gas price. Finally, the maximum NPV of 3 million USD with well spacing of 766 ft was determined.


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