Effect of Vertical Fractures on Reservoir Behavior-Results

on Oil and Gas Flow

ABSTRACT
A homogeneous and uniform cylindrical reservoir containing oil and gas is fractured vertically on
completion and is produced at a constant bottom-hole pressure. The fracture has an infinite flow
capacity, is of limited lateral extent and is bounded above and below by the impermeable strata
defining the vertical extent of the reservoir. Results show that such a fractured reservoir can be
represented by a reservoir of circular symmetry having very nearly the same production history. The
well radius of this circular reservoir is about 1/4 the fracture length and is essentially the same as
that obtained previously for a single fluid of constant compressibility.

At the same value of cumulative oil production, gas-oil ratios of fractured reservoirs producing at
constant terminal pressure are larger than those of reservoirs having no fractures. This leads to
more inefficient use of the reservoir energy in fractured wells and results in lower reservoir
pressures for the same cumulative oil production.

The reduction in operating life due to fracturing a reservoir is not as great as that for a slightly
compressible fluid.

This difference can be accounted for by the lower reservoir pressure in the fractured reservoir and
its adverse effect on the average mobility and compressibility of the oil. As anticipated, the
reduction in operating life increases as the reservoir permeability decreases.

The type of results presented in this report can be used to determine the economic attractiveness
of fracture treatments per se, to select the initial spacing to be used in developing a field. and to
compare the relative merits of fracturing available wells and infill drilling.

INTRODUCTION

The effect of vertical fractures on a reservoir producing either an incompressible or a compressible

liquid has already been discussed in the literature. Those results indicate that the production history
of such a reservoir is essentially the same as that of a circular reservoir having an effective well
radius of approximately one-fourth the fracture length.

The present work reports on the effect of a vertical fracture on a reservoir producing two
compressible fluids -oil and gas-by solution gas drive. Because of the empirical nature of the PVT
and relative permeability data used to obtain the performance of such reservoirs, results can only
be obtained numerically and with the aid of high-speed computers.

Since reservoirs lose their radial symmetry when fractured vertically, pressure and saturation can
no longer be given only in terms of distance from the well. Two coordinates (such as x and y) must
now be used to describe the pressure and saturation within the reservoir, and, since we are dealing
with compressible fluids, time is also a variable. Thus the solution of a vertically fractured reservoir
requires finding two unknowns (pressure and saturation) in two space variables (say x and y) and in
time (t).
Since no means are readily and generally available for solving such problems at the present time,
we have used the results of previous work to approximate the effect of a vertical fracture on a
reservoir producing both oil and gas by depletion.

The purpose of the present work, then, is to investigate the possibility of using available numerical
techniques (limited at the moment to one space variable) to study the two-space-variable flow
behavior resulting from a vertical fracture. Results obtained in the course of this investigation are
also reported and discussed.

Input and output data of the numerical methods used are given in practical units: BOPD, feet, psi,
cp, and md. Results are discussed first in terms of specific reservoir and crude properties and
geometries. Later, dimensionless parameters are introduced in order to extend results to different
values of some of the reservoir and fracture properties.

IDEALIZATION AND DESCRIPTION OF THE FRACTURED SYSTEM

It is assumed that a horizontal oil-producing layer of constant thickness and of uniform porosity and
permeability is bounded above and below by impermeable strata. The reservoir has an
impermeable, circular, cylindrical outer boundary of radius re. The fracture system is represented
by a single, plane, vertical fracture of limited radial extent, bounded by the impermeable matrix
above and below the producing layer (reservoir). It is assumed that there is no pressure drop in the
fracture due to fluid flow. Fig. I indicates the general three-dimensional geometry of the fractured
reservoir. Gravity effects and the effects of differential depletion resulting from variations in
hydrostatic head (pressure) will be neglected. Thus, the flow behavior in the fractured reservoir is
described by the two-dimensional flow behavior in a horizontal cross section of the reservoir (see
Fig. 2). Production is due to expansion of the gas initially dissolved in the reservoir crude.

Under these conditions, the differential equations describing the conservation of oil and gas are,
respectively,

At the outer boundary, both pressure and saturation gradients vanish, whereas at the well the
pressure is specified to be constant and equal to the pressure in the fracture. In addition, the initial
pressure and saturation distributions are considered to be uniform.

As already mentioned, no means are available for solving the differential equations, 1 and 2,
together with the corresponding initial and boundary conditions. Fortunately, earlier work has
suggested methods for obtaining approximate solutions to this system of equations.

METHOD OF SOLUTION
Methods available for obtaining the pressure and saturation distributions as a function of time are
limited to one space coordinate whereas two space coordinates are required to describe a vertically
fractured reservoir. Thus it has been necessary to make assumptions about the fracture system in
order to reduce (by one) the number of space coordinates. Once 'this is done, the available
numerical methods can be used to determine the behavior of fractured systems.

Two rather different assumptions have been made with regard to the flow behavior near the
fracture, each of which reduces the number of space coordinates to one. Results of Ref. 1 suggested
that the lines of equal pressure and saturation (in the cross section of Fig. 2) might be ellipses
confocal with the end of the fracture. This assumption, subsequently called the elliptical
representation, leads to the lines of equal pressure and saturation shown in Fig. 3. Note that the
circular outer boundary shown in Fig. 2 is now replaced by an (almost circular) ellipse. It should be
understood that the values of pressure and saturation at each ellipse change with time.

On the other hand, results of Ref. 1 and 2 also suggested that the fracture could be represented by
a large effective well radius approximately equal to 1/4 the total fracture length. This assumption,
called the circular representation, results in lines of equal pressure and saturation which are circles
concentric with the well bore (Fig. 4).

Both the elliptical and circular representations of the fracture system reduce Eqs. 1 and 2 to

when use is made of the coordinate transformations used in Ref. 1 and 3.

We note that now there is only a single space coordinate a to describe the fracture system. Eqs. 3
and 4, together with the boundary and initial conditions, can now be solved by the available
numerical methods described in

Ref. 4. For the elliptical representation, the function f (a) in Eqs. 3 and 4 is

Where

In this case, re, is chosen so that pi*r2,. is equal to the drainage area. For the circular representation,

Where

In this case, re, is chosen so that pi*(r2e r2w) is equal to the drainage area.

DESCRIPTION OF RESERVOIR CHARACTERISTICS

To investigate the effect of fractures on the performance of solution gas drive reservoirs, results
were obtained for several fracture lengths in reservoirs of different drainage radii and different
absolute permeabilities. All other properties and conditions have generally remained the same from
case to case, exceptions being indicated unambiguously. Unless otherwise specified, the properties
of the reservoir and its fluids, and the initial and fracture conditions, are those given below.

Crude Properties. The PVT properties of the crude, shown in graphical form in Fig. 5, are the same
as those used in Ref. 4.

Relative Permeability. The relative permeability data, shown in Fig. 6, are also the same as those
used in Ref. 4. Both oil and gas relative permeabilities are given as a function of total liquid
saturation.

Interstitial Water. The initial water in place is assumed immobile and incompressible and has a
saturation of 0.177.

Porosity. The porosity is 0.179.

Sand Thickness. The sand is 50 ft thick.

Time Fracture Is Made. Reservoirs are fractured on completion.

Initial Conditions. The initial reservoir pressure is constant throughout the reservoir and is the
bubble point pressure of 2,060 psig. The oil saturation is uniform throughout the reservoir and has
a value of 0.823. There is no free gas initially.

Conditions at the Well and at the Fracture. There is no pressure drop along the fracture. Thus, the
bottom-hole pressure and the pressure in the fracture are equal. The reservoir is produced by
maintaining the well pressure at 50 pslg. It was necessary to drop the well pressure linearly from its
initial value of 2,060 psig (bubble point) to its final value of 50 psig over a period of five days, rather
than over the first time step, in order to avoid computational difficulties.

COMPARISON OF RESULTS OBTAINED WITH CIRCULAR AND ELLIPTICAL REPRESENTATIONS

It is clear that the actual flow velocities near the fracture are greatly distorted in the circular
representation. On the other hand, the elliptical representation provides a more realistic flow
behavior near the fracture. In the first case, the lines of equal pressure and saturation are assumed
to be circles, and in the latter case they are assumed to be ellipses. These two representations
clearly must give a very different flow behavior in the reservoir, particularly near the fracture. The
degree to which the gross assumptions regarding the flow behavior near the fracture affect the
reservoir performance is discussed below. Fig. 7 shows the oil production rate vs time and the

oil production rate vs cumulative oil production obtained with the circular and elliptical
representations for a 1,000 ft diameter reservoir having an absolute permeability of 11.7 md and a
400-ft fracture. The results of the two representations, given by curves A and B, respectively, are
very similar, especially at large times.

The same is true of the results of a similar reservoir having an absolute permeability of 1.17 md
(instead of 11.7 md). The performance of this low-permeability reservoir is presented by curves C
and D of Fig. 8, which apply to the circular and elliptical representations, respectively.
Since the assumptions regarding the flow behavior near the fracture are so vastly different for the
two representations, the similarity of results shown in Figs. 7 and 8 indicates that the over-all
performance is affected primarily by the effective resistance to flow, rather than by variations (even
large variations) in the local flow behavior. In the circular representation the effective well radius is
chosen to have the same flow resistance as the fracture.

The fact that the performance of a solution gas drive reservoir does not differ appreciably for the
elliptical and circular representations can be taken for proof that the effective well radius of a
solution gas drive reservoir is essentially the same as that obtained previously for a single

fluid of constant compressibility.2 It also indicates that the reservoir performance obtained with
both representations is essentially correct, especially for large times. The agreement between the
results of the two representations would be closer for shorter fractures (compared with a 1000 ft
diameter reservoir). Since the elliptical representation better describes the flow behavior near the
fracture, all subsequent results have been obtained by means of this representation.

EFFECT OF FRACTURES ON OPERATING LIFE

Normally, fractures reduce the operating life of a field by decreasing the flow resistance into the
well. The operating life is defined as the time required to reach the economic production rate,
considered in this report to be 2 BOPD.

The effect of fracture length on the production rate history has been investigated for a reservoir
having a drainage radius of 500 ft and a permeability of 11.7 md. Results of 100- and 400-ft fractures
are compared with those of an unfractured reservoir having a well radius of 0.25 ft. The production
rate histories for these cases are shown by curves B, E, and F of Fig. 9.

The operating life of the three cases (obtained from Fig. 9) is listed in Table 1. It can easily be seen
that the field operating life varies appreciably with the length of the fracture. For instance, the life
of an unfractured well is 1.67 times that of a well with a 400-ft fracture.

The effect of fractures on the operating life is more pronounced for lower permeabilities. Fig. 10
indicates the performance of a reservoir similar to that discussed in the preceding paragraphs, but
with an absolute permeability of 1.17 md instead of 11.7 md. Curves D and G show the performance
of a well with a 400-ft fracture and that

of an unfractured well, respectively. The operating life of the unfractured well is 5,250 days, and
that of the fractured well is 2,480 days. The value of 2.12 for the ratio of the operating lives is higher
than that for the I1.7-md case.

The operating life of solution gas drive reservoirs can also be estimated from the single-
compressible-fluid results of Ref. 2 (for small and constant compressibility). Reduction in operating
life resulting from fractures obtained in this manner is also listed in Table 1. It can be seen that
constant-compressibility single-fluid results do not agree very well with those obtained when two-
phase flow is considered, at least not for the fluid and reservoir properties used in this study. The
single-fluid results reflect only the decrease in effective flow resistance resulting from fracturing,
whereas the two-phase flow results also reflect changes in the effective permeabilities and PVT
properties occurring during depletion.

As can be seen from Fig. 11, at the same value of cumulative production, the average reservoir
pressure is lower in the fractured reservoir than in the unfractured reservoir. This has three
important effects: (1) the pressure gradient in the fractured reservoir is lower than that in the
unfractured reservoir; (2) the oil mobility of the fractured reservoir is lower than that of the
unfractured reservoir, since oil viscosity increases with pressure decline and

effective permeability decreases with increased shrinkage; and (3) the oil compressibility, given by
Perrine as

is higher in the fractured reservoir. These effects tend to retard the production of oil in the fractured
reservoir and to offset the decrease in flow resistance resulting from the fracture. Thus, the ratio of
the operating lives with depletion will be smaller than that obtained with the simple single-fluid
theory.

It should also be noted that the gas mobility increases as the pressure decreases. Thus, the gas
production rate is not decreased as much as the oil production rate. Hence, when the results for a
fractured and an unfractured well producing at the same constant terminal pressure are compared,
the gas-oil ratio in the fractured system is generally larger than that in the unfractured system (at
the same value of cumulative oil production).

The peaks in the gas-oil ratio curves shown in Fig. 11 at cumulative oil production of up to 5,000 bbl
appear to be the result of dropping the well pressure from its initial value to its final value over a
period of five days. It is anticipated that the early well response would be affected by the manner
in which the terminal pressure is reached.

EFFECT OF FRACTURES ON ULTIMATE RECOVERY

For the purpose of this report, ultimate recovery is defined as the cumulative oil produced during
the economic life, that is, at the time an assumed economic oil production rate of 2 BOPD is reached.
A study of the effect of fracture length on performance has been made on a reservoir having a
drainage radius of 500 ft and a permeability of 11.7 md. The performances resulting from fracture
lengths of 400 and 100 ft and that of an unfractured reservoir having a well radius of 0.25 ft are
represented by curves B, E and F in Fig. 9. The curves of cumulative oil production vs oil production
rate shown in Fig. 9 indicate that oil recovery is essentially independent of the fracture length by
the time the rate is lower than 10 BOPD.

For permeabilities of 1.17 md, ultimate recovery is affected by the fracture length. Curves D and G
of Fig. 10 represent the performances of a 400-ft fracture and an unfractured well, respectively, in
a reservoir having a permeability of 1.17 md. At the economic rate of 2 BOPD, the cumulative
production of the unfractured reservoir is 44,700 bbl. and that of the fractured reservoir is 46,800
bbl., or about a 5-per cent increase.
These results indicate that fractures mayor may not appreciably increase the ultimate recovery of a
field, depending on the permeability of the reservoir. In general, however, the lower the
permeability, the larger the increase in ultimate recovery resulting from fractures.

As indicated in Figs. 9 and 10, when the economic rate becomes larger, the effect of a fracture on
ultimate recovery is more pronounced, even though the ultimate recovery itself decreases. The
increase in ultimate recovery resulting from fracturing a well with a radius of 0.25 ft with a skin
would be larger than that indicated by Figs. 9 and 10, since the effective radius of the unfractured
well would be smaller than 0.25 ft.

DISCUSSION
Although results have been presented thus far for specific values of permeability, production
interval, porosity, fracture length and drainage radius, these same results can be extended by
making use of the following dimensionless quantities:

Values of these dimensionless quantities (calculated from results previously discussed) are plotted
in Figs. 12 and 13 for three sets of re/L or re/rw. It is stressed that these dimensionless quantities
can be extended only to different values of absolute permeability, production interval, porosity,
fracture length and drainage radius. PVT properties of the crude, relative permeabilities, and initial
and producing conditions must remain unchanged. The choice of dimensionless time according to
Eq. 12 ensures that the production conditions are the same for the cases considered.

Fig. 12 shows a plot of dimensionless rate and GOR vs dimensionless time obtained for some values
re/L and re/rw. The hump in the GOR curves indicated in Fig. 11is not evident in Fig. 12, since it
occurs at a very early time. Fig. 13 gives the dimensionless cumulative oil production and average
pressure vs dimensionless production rate. Apparent discrepancies at the highest production rates
(or earliest times) between the dimensional and dimensionless plots are due to the length of time
(five days) taken to drop the pressure at the well from its initial value to its final value compared
with the operating life of the well. The longer the operating life, the smaller the effect of the initial
linear drop on the final stages of the production history. For this reason, results of cases having a
long operating life have been weighted heavily in obtaining the dimensionless curves at early time.

Fig. 13 shows that the ultimate recovery is not increased significantly by fracturing for values of
dimensionless rate at abandonment smaller than 0.001. These values correspond to values of kh
larger than about 140 md-ft for a l-cp oil, a 2,000-psi drawdown (from bubble point), and an
economic rate of 2 BOPD. The increase in ultimate recovery would be negligible for the better
reservoirs if, as in this report, the possibility of opening up adjacent layers to production is
neglected.

A quantity of considerable interest is the productivity index or production rate per psi drawdown.
We shall define a dimensionless productivity index by

Fig. 14 shows a plot of this index vs dimensionless cumulative oil production for r,/L = 2.5 and 10,
and re/rw = 2,000. Note that although the productivity index is higher the larger the fracture, its
rate of decline with cumulative production generally increases with the fracture length. This general
rule does not apply for small values of cumulative production, where the production rate is
adversely affected by the five days required for the pressure in the fracture to drop to 50 psig.

In general, the results presented in this report indicate how vertical fractures of varying lengths
affect the production rate, ultimate recovery and operating life of solution gas drive reservoirs (of
varying pore volume per well) having the PVT and effective permeability properties discussed under
Description of Reservoir Characteristics.

The authors are well aware that situations and conditions exist where fracturing the formation is
undesirable,

or impossible, or both. However, whenever and wherever fracturing is both possible and desirable,
the type of results presented in this report will be useful in determining the attractiveness of
fracture treatments, in selecting the optimum initial spacing to be used in developing a field, and in
weighing the relative merits of fracturing available wells and infill drilling.

These results are the first of the investigation of the effect of fractures on the performance of
solution gas drive reservoirs. The methods used here can not only be extended to other initial and
operating conditions and other PVT and permeability properties, but may also be used to study the
effect of fractures after some production. The rate of decline of the production rate determines the
length of the fracture in the single-fluid case. Some effort in extending this to solution gas-drive
reservoirs also seems worth while. Whether the approximate methods of solution for reservoirs
producing by solution gas drive are applicable to fractured reservoirs remains to be seen. If these
methods, such as the semisteady-state4 method, were found to be unreliable, the present method
could be used. Unless a different set of PVT and relative permeability data should give
computational difficulties, the method

discussed in this report could be used to obtain results for about $100 per case.

CONCLUSIONS
The following conclusions can be drawn for solution gasdrive reservoirs having PVT and effective
permeability properties similar to those presented in this report. The wells are fractured vertically
on completion and are produced at a constant bottom-hole pressure of 50 psig, the pressure being
dropped linearly from its initial to its final value over a period of five days.

1. A fractured reservoir can be represented by a reservoir of circular symmetry having very nearly
the same production history. The well radius of this circular reservoir is 1/4 the fracture length and
is essentially the same as that indicated for a single compressible fluid.

2. Gas-oil ratios of fractured reservoirs are larger than those of unfractured reservoirs. This leads to
more inefficient use of the reservoir energy in fractured wells and results in lower reservoir
pressures for the same cumulative production. This may not be true of reservoirs producing at
constant terminal rate.
3. The reduction in operating life resulting from fracturing a field producing by solution gas drive is
not so great as that of a field producing a single compressible fluid. This difference can be accounted
for by the lower reservoir pressure in the fractured reservoir and its effect on the average mobility
and compressibility of the oil. For the cases considered, the operating life at an assumed economic
rate of 2 BOPD is roughly halved by a 400-ft fracture in a reservoir having a diameter of 1,000 ft
drained by a well with a radius of 0.25 ft. Everything else being constant, the reduction in operating
life increases as the permeability decreases.

4. The increase in ultimate recovery due to fractures is small, except in formations having a
dimensionless production rate larger than 0.001 at the economic rate.

5. The type of results presented in this report can easily be obtained for other sets of PVT and
relative permeability data as well as for different initial and operating conditions. The results would
be useful in determining the economic attractiveness of fracture treatments, in selecting the initial
spacing to be used in developing a field, and in weighing the relative merits of fracturing available
wells and infill drilling.