Title: Case Studies of a Simple Yet Rigorous Forecasting Procedure for Tight Gas Wells
Abstract: Abstract The dominant flow regime observed in many hydraulically-fractured tight/shale gas wells is linear flow. This flow regime may continue for several years, and will ultimately become boundary-dominated flow, at much later times. Nobakht et al. (2010) introduced a simplified method of production forecasting for tight/shale gas wells which exhibit extended periods of linear flow. The method is simple as it relies principally on a plot of inverse gas rate versus square root time, and it is rigorous in that it is based on the theory of linear flow and combines the linear flow transient period with hyperbolic decline during boundary-dominated flow. In the present work, this simplified method is reviewed and applied to almost 90 wells producing from the Montney formation in N.E. British Columbia, Canada. The vast majority of these wells exhibit linear flow for extended periods of time. The advantages of the simplified forecasting method are: (1) It is not biased towards any flow regimes, as no superposition time functions are used; (2) Reliable forecasts can be obtained without invoking pseudo-time and its associated complexities; and (3) The only parameter that needs to be specified externally is the drainage area. The method can be used for forecasting horizontal wells with multiple hydraulic fractures. By assigning different drainage areas to each fracture, a relationship can be developed between expected ultimate recovery (EUR) and original gas in place (OGIP) assigned to each fracture. This translates into recovery factor versus number of fracture stages. The resulting forecasts can be used directly to examine the economics of multi-stage fracturing.
Publication Year: 2010
Publication Date: 2010-10-19
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 8
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