Spacing of Hydraulically Fractured Horizontal Laterals in Low Permeability Formations

Abstract

The discovery of unconventional reservoirs such as tight gas sands and shale gas, the resolve for the United States to become independent of foreign hydrocarbons, toppled with depleting conventional fields around the world, has pushed for new technologies and effective and efficient approaches in unconventional reservoirs long-term production to supply their ever-growing demand. Horizontal drilling along with hydraulic fracturing are the two most popular methods used to render low-permeability formations such as the Marcellus Shale economically productive. Nowadays, coupled with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, new strategies and tools such as coil tubing and multilateral horizontal wells are being strategized and used for unconventional reservoirs as well as conventional reservoirs to maximize recovery. However, the understanding of the production performance of recently drilled hydraulically fractured horizontal wells in low-permeability formations represents a challenge because of the lack extensive production history on these new producing wells. The same is true about the multilateral horizontal wells, though they have great potential for improving the recovery. The objective of this study was to conduct a modeling study, to investigate the impact of wells spacing on the production performance of hydraulically fractured multilateral horizontal wells in low permeability formations.