Impact of Accurate Fractured Reservoir Flow Modeling on Recovery Predictions

Abstract

The design and evaluation of hydraulic fracture modeling is critical for efficient production from tight gas and shale plays. The efficiency of fracturing jobs depends on the interaction between hydraulic (induced) and naturally occurring discrete fractures. We describe a coupled reservoir-fracture flow model which accounts for varying reservoir geometries and complexities including non-planar fractures, faults and barriers. In addition our model is coupled with linear elasticity using iterative coupling to solve a multi-phase Biot system. The approach presented here is in contrast with existing averaging approaches such as dual and discrete-dual porosity models where the effects of fractures are averaged out. We model the fractures and reservoirs explicitly, which allows us to capture the flow details and impact of fractures more accurately. Moreover, accurate modeling of solid deformations necessitates a better estimation of fluid pressure inside fracture, which our flow model provides. We utilize different flow models for the fractures and the reservoir closely capturing physics when needed. A quantitative comparison is made in order to identify situations where a multiphysics flow description is critical to accurate prediction compared to an averaging based approach. We present several numerical tests, including a field scale case study, to illustrate the above features and their impact on recovery predictions.

Iterative coupling of flow, geomechanics and adaptive phase-field fracture including level-set crack width approaches

“…Iterative coupling has received great importance for coupling flow and mechanics in subsurface modeling, environmental and petroleum engineering problems [14,23,24,41,42,52,53]. Recently, the extension of iterative coupling to fractured porous media has been of interest [18,43,54]. However, reliable and efficient numerical methods in coupled poromechanics, including fractures, still pose computational challenges.…”

Multiscale formulation for coupled flow-heat equations arising from single-phase flow in fractured geothermal reservoirs

“…Fractures naturally add to the complexity of the mathematical formulations by introducing significant contrasts in the conductivity and geometry [1][2][3][4]. Their important role in the flow and transport of mass and energy can be properly investigated only if they are explicitly represented in the computational domain [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. The embedded discrete fracture model (EDFM) [13][14][15] has been developed to resolve several geometrical challenges due to explicit treatment of the fractures.…”

Compositional flow modeling using a multi-point flux mixed finite element method

“…Further, the general hexahedral elements capture complex reservoir geometries without requiring substantial adjustment of associated petrophysical properties. This also allows for capturing of non-planar fractures Singh et al [2014] as a future prospect for compositional flow modeling in fractured poroelastic reservoirs.…”