Integrated Horizontal Well Placement and Hydraulic Fracture Stages Design Optimization in Unconventional Gas Reservoirs

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaodan Ma ◽  
Tatyana Plaksina ◽  
Eduardo Gildin
Keyword(s):  
Design Optimization ◽  
Hydraulic Fracture ◽  
Horizontal Well ◽  
Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Well Placement ◽  
Unconventional Gas ◽  
Unconventional Gas Reservoirs

scholarly journals Optimization of Multiple Hydraulically Fractured Horizontal Wells in Unconventional Gas Reservoirs

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Yu ◽  
Kamy Sepehrnoori
Keyword(s):  
Horizontal Wells ◽  
Barnett Shale ◽  
Hydraulic Fractures ◽  
Uncertain Parameters ◽  
Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Well Placement ◽  
Unconventional Gas ◽  
Fracture Conductivity ◽  
Gas Desorption ◽  
Unconventional Gas Reservoirs

Accurate placement of multiple horizontal wells drilled from the same well pad plays a critical role in the successful economical production from unconventional gas reservoirs. However, there are high cost and uncertainty due to many inestimable and uncertain parameters such as reservoir permeability, porosity, fracture spacing, fracture half-length, fracture conductivity, gas desorption, and well spacing. In this paper, we employ response surface methodology to optimize multiple horizontal well placement to maximize Net Present Value (NPV) with numerically modeling multistage hydraulic fractures in combination with economic analysis. This paper demonstrates the accuracy of numerical modeling of multistage hydraulic fractures for actual Barnett Shale production data by considering the gas desorption effect. Six uncertain parameters, such as permeability, porosity, fracture spacing, fracture half-length, fracture conductivity, and distance between two neighboring wells with a reasonable range based on Barnett Shale information, are used to fit a response surface of NPV as the objective function and to finally identify the optimum design under conditions of different gas prices based on NPV maximization. This integrated approach can contribute to obtaining the optimal drainage area around the wells by optimizing well placement and hydraulic fracturing treatment design and provide insight into hydraulic fracture interference between single well and neighboring wells.

The effect of hydraulic-fracture parameters on the welltest response of multi-fractured tight-gas reservoirs

2013 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 375
Author(s):  
Chaolang Qiu ◽  
Mofazzal Hossain ◽  
Hassan Bahrami ◽  
Yangfan Lu
Keyword(s):  
Hydraulic Fracture ◽  
Transient Flow ◽  
Hydraulic Fractures ◽  
Tight Gas ◽  
Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Pressure Derivative ◽  
Unconventional Gas ◽  
Tight Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Fracture Parameters ◽  
Unconventional Gas Reservoirs

With the reduction of conventional reserves, the demand and exploration of unconventional sources becomes increasingly important in the energy supply system. Low permeability, low porosity, and the complexities of rock formation in unconventional gas reservoirs make it difficult to extract commercially viable gas resources. Hydraulic fracture is the most common technique used for commercial production of hydrocarbon resources from unconventional tight-gas reservoirs. Due to the existence of an extremely long transient-flow period in tight-gas reservoirs, the interpretation of welltest data based on conventional welltest analysis is quite challenging, and could potentially lead to misleading results. This peer-reviewed paper presents a new approach based on a log-log reciprocal rate derivative plot. Emphases are given on the identification of factors affecting the welltest response in multiple hydraulic-fractured wells in unconventional gas reservoirs based on numerical simulation. The objective is to investigate the sensitivity of various reservoir and hydraulic-fracture parameters, such as multiple hydraulic-fracture size, fracture number and fracture orientation on welltest response, and the effect of the pressure derivative curve on the slopes of welltest diagnostic plots, as well as on well productivity performance. The results can be used to understand the welltest response for different hydraulic-fracturing scenarios for the efficiency and characteristics of hydraulic fractures.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document