Effect of Complex Natural Fractures on Economic Well Spacing Optimization in Shale Gas Reservoir with Gas-Water Two-Phase Flow

Cheng Chang, Yongming Li, Xiaoping Li, Chuxi Liu, Mauricio Fiallos-Torres and Wei Yu
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Cheng Chang: State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Xindu 637001, China
Yongming Li: State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Xindu 637001, China
Xiaoping Li: State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Xindu 637001, China
Chuxi Liu: Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
Mauricio Fiallos-Torres: Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
Wei Yu: Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-21

Abstract: At present, investigation of the effects of natural fractures on optimal well spacing of shale gas reservoirs from an economic perspective has been lacking. Traditional frameworks of fracture characterization, such as local grid refinement, make it unfeasible and inaccurate to study these effects of high-density natural fractures with complex geometries on well spacing. In this study, the non-intrusive EDFM (embedded discrete fracture model) method was presented to characterize fractures fast and accurately. The non-intrusiveness of EDFM removed the necessity of accessing the codes behind reservoir simulators, which meant it could simply create associated keywords that would correspondingly modify these fracture properties in separate files without information regarding the source codes. By implementing this powerful technology, a field-scale shale gas reservoir model was set up, including two-phase flow. The effective properties of hydraulic fractures were determined from the history matching process, and the results were entered into the well spacing optimization workflow. Different scenarios of natural fracture (NF) distributions and well spacing were designed, and the final economic analysis for each case was explored based on simulated productions. As a result, one of the findings of this study was that optimal well spacing tended to increase if more natural fractures were presented in the reservoir.

Keywords: well spacing optimization; shale gas; natural fractures; embedded discrete fracture model; well interference (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: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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