Masters Theses

Keywords and Phrases

Hydraulically Fractured High Permeability Gas Reservoirs; Hydraulic Fracturing Of Conventional Reservoirs; OHMS And P-n-P Completion Performance In Hydraulic Fractured High Permeability Reservoirs; Transverse And Longitudinal Fracture Performance In High Permeability Gas Reservoirs

Abstract

"Hydraulic fracturing of horizontal wells in unconventional reservoirs has become the dominant type of well completion performed in the United States. In very low permeability reservoirs (~.00001-.0001 mD), the wellbore is aligned with the minimum horizontal stress, and the completion includes multiple transverse fractures. These fractures may be placed with either open hole sleeve type completion systems (OHMS), or cased hole plug and perf systems (P-n-P). In slightly higher permeability reservoirs (1 to 10 mD) multiple longitudinal fractures have been found to be preferred to completions with transverse fractures.

This study presents an evaluation of gas well productivity for both transverse and longitudinal fractured horizontal wells using CFD simulations. The first part of the work includes an evaluation of one and two transverse fractures, over reservoir permeability of 1, 10 and 100 mD. Results, given as fold of increase, are compared to the single transverse fracture model of Augustine (2011). The work includes a parametric study of fracture width, penetration ratio and vertical to horizontal permeability ratio on production rates.

The second part of the study includes CFD simulations for a single longitudinal fracture, and compares productivity results of this fracture orientation to transverse fractures in the 1, 10 and 100 mD cases.

Results of this study suggest OHMs completions outperform P-n-P completions. The results of the work also corroborate the findings of Yang (2015) and Kassim et al (2016) suggesting that longitudinal fractured wells perform better in the slightly higher permeability reservoirs (1-10 mD)"--Abstract, page iii.

Advisor(s)

Dunn-Norman, Shari

Committee Member(s)

Bai, Baojun
Flori, Ralph E.

Department(s)

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering

Degree Name

M.S. in Petroleum Engineering

Publisher

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Publication Date

Fall 2016

Pagination

xi, 104 pages

Note about bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 99-103).

Rights

© 2016 Hrithu Vasudevan

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

File Type

text

Language

English

Subject Headings

Hydraulic fracturing
Horizontal oil well drilling
Permeability -- Testing
Computational fluid dynamics
Oil fields -- Production methods

Thesis Number

T 11055

Electronic OCLC #

974715928

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