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Long-term Well Performance Prediction in Unconventional tight Gas And Shale Gas Reservoirs : A Density Approach

Author
Vardcharragosad, Pichit
Published
[University Park, Pennsylvania] : Pennsylvania State University, 2014.
Physical Description
1 electronic document
Additional Creators
Ayala, Luis F., 1974-
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Open Access.
Summary
Unconventional tight gas and shale gas are the largest and fastest growing natural gas supply in the US. Natural gas produced from tight gas and shale gas reservoirs accounts for 60% of U.S. natural gas production in 2011. This number is expected to increase to 73% in 2040 (EIA, 2013). The lack of understanding and the lack of tools that can be applied to these unconventional plays are the major challenges. In unconventional tight gas and shale gas, the conventional reservoir engineering tools have been proven to be unsuccessful because they fail to capture the large differences in physical properties which heavily impact the production behaviors. The main differences include the ultra-low permeability of the formation, presence of adsorbed phase, and the need for multi-stage hydraulically fractured horizontal well completion to create massive flow area.This study aims to develop new reservoir engineering analysis techniques which fully apply for unconventional tight gas and shale gas reservoirs. The new techniques should be able to capture the reservoir responses that are characterized by the transient flow regime and the multi-mechanistic flow in ultra-low permeability formations, the complex flow pattern from hydraulic fracture completion, and the natural gas desorption. We focus on formulating the fundamental, physics-based governing equation for these tight gas and shale gas reservoirs, as well as the long-term analysis and prediction tools that can capture their physical properties. The research applies new promising tools, a density approach, which was proposed to the industry by our research group. In the density method, gas diffusivity equation will be solved in a density-based form, and effects of reservoir depletion on fluid properties are captured through dimensionless variable, [lambda]-[beta]. The density method has been proven to be a reliable production data analysis tool applicable to conventional gas reservoirs produced under constant flowing pressure, constant flow rate, variable pressure/rate constraint as well as in reservoirs with significant rock compressibility. In this thesis, we prove that density-based technique can be further extended to analyze production data from i) gas linear and fractal flow under boundary dominating condition, ii) gas radial, linear, and fractal flow with significant transient flow period, and iii) gas flow under slippage and desorption effects. We demonstrate that [lambda]-[beta] can effectively quantify effects of depletion on gas properties in reservoirs with linear, radial, and fractal flow. We also show how to incorporate slippage and desorption effects as well as transient flow effect by properly modified definitions of [lambda]-[beta]. Based on these results, we are able to show that the density-based production analysis tools, originally developed for conventional gas reservoirs under boundary dominated radial flow, can be applied to predict and analyze production from unconventional gas reservoirs. In addition, we are able to use these density-based tools to analyze the impact of flow geometries on production decline behavior of gas wells.
Other Subject(s)
Dissertation Note
Ph.D. Pennsylvania State University, 2014.
Reproduction Note
Microfilm (positive). 1 reel 35 mm. (University Microfilms 103-08348)
Technical Details
The full text of the dissertation is available as an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file ; Adobe Acrobat Reader required to view the file.
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