Critical Production Pressure and Optimal Gas Production Rate to Avoid Hydrate Reservoir Disturbance

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chen Yuan ◽  
Sun Ting ◽  
Zhao Ying ◽  
Xing Wen Wang ◽  
Mo Xi Qu ◽  
...  
SPE Journal ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (04) ◽  
pp. 397-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mashhad Mousa Fahes ◽  
Abbas Firoozabadi

Summary Wettability of two types of sandstone cores, Berea (permeability on the order of 600 md), and a reservoir rock (permeability on the order of 10 md), is altered from liquid-wetting to intermediate gas-wetting at a high temperature of 140C. Previous work on wettability alteration to intermediate gas-wetting has been limited to 90C. In this work, chemicals previously used at 90C for wettability alteration are found to be ineffective at 140C. New chemicals are used which alter wettability at high temperatures. The results show that:wettability could be permanently altered from liquid-wetting to intermediate gas-wetting at high reservoir temperatures,wettability alteration has a substantial effect on increasing liquid mobility at reservoir conditions,wettability alteration results in improved gas productivity, andwettability alteration does not have a measurable effect on the absolute permeability of the rock for some chemicals. We also find the reservoir rock, unlike Berea, is not strongly water-wet in the gas/water/rock system. Introduction A sharp reduction in gas well deliverability is often observed in many low-permeability gas-condensate reservoirs even at very high reservoir pressure. The decrease in well deliverability is attributed to condensate accumulation (Hinchman and Barree 1985; Afidick et al. 1994) and water blocking (Engineer 1985; Cimolai et al. 1983). As the pressure drops below the dewpoint, liquid accumulates around the wellbore in high saturations, reducing gas relative permeability (Barnum et al. 1995; El-Banbi et al. 2000); the result is a decrease in the gas production rate. Several techniques have been used to increase gas well deliverability after the initial decline. Hydraulic fracturing is used to increase absolute permeability (Haimson and Fairhurst 1969). Solvent injection is implemented in order to remove the accumulated liquid (Al-Anazi et al. 2005). Gas deliverability often increases after the reduction of the condensate saturation around the wellbore. In a successful methanol treatment in Hatter's Pond field in Alabama (Al-Anazi et al. 2005), after the initial decline in well deliverability by a factor of three to five owing to condensate blocking, gas deliverability increased by a factor of two after the removal of water and condensate liquids from the near-wellbore region. The increased rates were, however, sustained for a period of 4 months only. The approach is not a permanent solution to the problem, because the condensate bank will form again. On the other hand, when hydraulic fracturing is used by injecting aqueous fluids, the cleanup of water accumulation from the formation after fracturing is essential to obtain an increased productivity. Water is removed in two phases: immiscible displacement by gas, followed by vaporization by the expanding gas flow (Mahadevan and Sharma 2003). Because of the low permeability and the wettability characteristics, it may take a long time to perform the cleanup; in some cases, as little as 10 to 15% of the water load could be recovered (Mahadevan and Sharma 2003; Penny et al. 1983). Even when the problem of water blocking is not significant, the accumulation of condensate around the fracture face when the pressure falls below dewpoint pressure could result in a reduction in the gas production rate (Economides et al. 1989; Sognesand 1991; Baig et al. 2005).


SPE Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Yingli Xia ◽  
Tianfu Xu ◽  
Yilong Yuan ◽  
Xin Xin ◽  
Huixing Zhu

Summary Natural gas hydrate (NGH) is regarded as an important alternative future energy resource. In recent years, a few short-term production tests have been successfully conducted with both permafrost and marine sediments. However, long-term hydrate production performance and the potential geomechanical problems are not very clear. According to the available geological data at the Mallik site, a more realistic hydrate reservoir model that considers the heterogeneity of porosity, permeability, and hydrate saturation was developed and validated by reproducing the field depressurization test. The coupled multiphase and heat flow and geomechanical response induced by depressurization were fully investigated for long-term gas production from the validated hydrate reservoir model. The results indicate that long-term gas production through depressurization from a vertically heterogeneous hydrate reservoir is technically feasible, but the production efficiency is generally modest, with the low average gas production rate of 4.93 × 103 ST m3/d (ST represents the standard conditions) over a 1-year period. The hydrate dissociation region is significantly affected by the reservoir heterogeneity and reveals a heterogeneous dissociation front in the reservoir. The depressurization production results in significant increase of shear stress and vertical compaction in the hydrate reservoir. The response of shear stress indicates that the potential region of sand migration is mainly in the sand-dominant layer during gas production from the hydraulically heterogeneous hydrate reservoir (e.g., sand layers interbedded with clay layers). The maximum subsidence is approximately 78 mm and occurred at the 72nd day, whereas the final subsidence is slowly dropped to 63 mm after 1-year of depressurization production. The vertical subsidence is greatly dependent on the elastic properties and the permeability anisotropy. In particular, the maximum subsidence increased by approximately 81% when the ratio of permeability anisotropy was set at 5:1. Furthermore, the potential shear failure in the hydrate reservoir is strongly correlated to the in-situ stress state. For the normal fault stress regime, the greater the initial horizontal stress is, the less likely the hydrate reservoir is to undergo shear failure during depressurization production.


2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhang Jianwen ◽  
Jiang Aiguo ◽  
Xin Yanan ◽  
He Jianyun

The erosion-corrosion problem of gas well pipeline under gas–liquid two-phase fluid flow is crucial for the natural gas well production, where multiphase transport phenomena expose great influences on the feature of erosion-corrosion. A Eulerian–Eulerian two-fluid flow model is applied to deal with the three-dimensional gas–liquid two-phase erosion-corrosion problem and the chemical corrosion effects of the liquid droplets dissolved with CO2 on the wall are taken into consideration. The amount of erosion and chemical corrosion is predicted. The erosion-corrosion feature at different parts including expansion, contraction, step, screw sections, and bends along the well pipeline is numerically studied in detail. For dilute droplet flow, the interaction between flexible water droplets and pipeline walls under different operations is treated by different correlations according to the liquid droplet Reynolds numbers. An erosion-corrosion model is set up to address the local corrosion and erosion induced by the droplets impinging on the pipe surfaces. Three typical cases are studied and the mechanism of erosion-corrosion for different positions is investigated. It is explored by the numerical simulation that the erosion-corrosion changes with the practical production conditions: Under lower production rate, chemical corrosion is the main cause for erosion-corrosion; under higher production rate, erosion predominates greatly; and under very high production rate, erosion becomes the main cause. It is clarified that the parts including connection site of oil pipe, oil pipe set, and valve are the places where erosion-corrosion origins and becomes serious. The failure mechanism is explored and good comparison with field measurement is achieved.


Geofluids ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yilong Yuan ◽  
Tianfu Xu ◽  
Yingli Xia ◽  
Xin Xin

The effects of geologic conditions and production methods on gas production from hydrate-bearing sediments (HBS) have been widely investigated. The reservoir was usually treated as horizontal distribution, whereas the sloping reservoir was not considered. In fact, most strata have gradients because of the effects of geological structure and diagenesis. In this study, based on currently available geological data from field measurements in Shenhu area of the South China Sea, the effects of formation dip on gas production were investigated through depressurization using a horizontal well. The modeling results indicate that the strategy of horizontal well is an effective production method from the unconfined Class 2 HBS. The predicted cumulative volume of methane produced at the 1000 m horizontal well was 4.51 × 107 ST m3 over 5-year period. The hydrate dissociation behavior of sloping formation is sensitive to changes in the reservoir pressure. As in unconfined marine hydrate reservoir, the sloping formation is not conducive to free methane gas recovery, which results in more dissolved methane produced at the horizontal well. The obvious issue for this challenging target is relatively low exploitation efficiency of methane because of the recovery of very large volumes of water. Consequently, the development of the favorable well completion method to prevent water production is significantly important for realizing large scale hydrate exploitation in the future.


The top 5-50 cm of a peat deposit above the water table are predominantly oxic while below that the peat is anoxic. The concentrations of CH 4 and CO 2 in the peat below 50 cm do not change with the seasons. The concentrations are greatest at or near the base of the peat and decrease quadratically upwards, consistent with a gas production rate (CH 4 + CO 2 ) of 0.03 μ mol cm -3 a -1 and movement by diffusion. The upward efflux of CH 4 , calculated from the concentration profile in deep peat, is 1, and of CO 2 is 17 μ mol m -2 h -1 . Just below the water table there is a small peak in CH 4 concentration. The peak concentrations are greater in summer than in winter. This indicates a second, seasonal and local, but not yet quantified source of CH 4 . Effluxes of CH 4 from the peatland surface range from ordinary summer maxima of about 200 down to winter values less than 10 μ mol m -2 h -1 , and at times negative values. The efflux from hummocks is usually about a third of that from hollows. These results indicate that methane oxidation may be important in hummocks.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document