Simulation Study on the Effect of Fracturing Technology on the Production Efficiency of Natural Gas Hydrate

Chen Chen, Lin Yang, Rui Jia, Youhong Sun, Wei Guo, Yong Chen and Xitong Li
Additional contact information
Chen Chen: Engineering College, Jilin University, Changchun 130026, China
Lin Yang: Engineering College, Jilin University, Changchun 130026, China
Rui Jia: Engineering College, Jilin University, Changchun 130026, China
Youhong Sun: Engineering College, Jilin University, Changchun 130026, China
Wei Guo: Engineering College, Jilin University, Changchun 130026, China
Yong Chen: Engineering College, Jilin University, Changchun 130026, China
Xitong Li: Engineering College, Jilin University, Changchun 130026, China

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 8, 1-16

Abstract: Natural gas hydrate (NGH) concentrations hold large reserves of relatively pure unconventional natural gases, consisting mainly of methane. Depressurization is emerging as the optimum conversion technology for converting NGH in its reservoir to its constituent water and natural gas. NGH concentrations commonly have a pore fill of over 80%, which means that NGH is a low-permeability reservoir, as NGH has displaced water in terms of porosity. Fracturing technology (fracking) is a technology employed for increasing permeability-dependent production, and has been proven in conventional and tight oil and gas reservoirs. In this work, we carried out numerical simulations to investigate the effects on depressurization efficiency of a variably-fractured NGH reservoir, to make a first order assessment of fracking efficiency. We performed calculations for the variations in original NGH saturation, pressure distribution, CH 4 gas production rate, and cumulative production under different fracturing conditions. Our results show that the rate of the pressure drop within the NGH-saturated host strata increases with increased fracturing. The CH 4 gas production rate and cumulative production are greatly improved with fracturing. Crack quantity and spacing per volume have a significant effect on the improvement of NGH conversion efficiencies. Possibly most important, we identified an optimum fracking value beyond which further fracking is not required.

Keywords: natural gas hydrate; fracturing technology; numerical simulation; production efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/8/1241/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/8/1241/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:10:y:2017:i:8:p:1241-:d:109038

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().