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I
I ky
I Z
L
J--_L:_y--~. . . _ ~.
Ex. 2
~ derivatives
h o x
H-LwI
~l(
I Zw
I
~------------------ 0.1
""""""
10-4
Fig. 1-Horizontal well model.
OJ
.2:
Cii
>
.~ -r where q is the constant flow rate, !i.PI hr = Po- Pw(t= I hour) for
drawdown tests, and !i.Plhr= Pw(!i.t= 1 hour) - (!i.t- 0) for buildup
7
tests. Pw at 1 hour for both tests is obtained from the semilog, Horner,
o
or derivative plot.
Hemi-radial
In principle, the geometric mean permeability j kHk v and damage
-....r--. skin may be obtained from the first radial flow regime. provided thaI
the wellbore pressure during this regime is not affected by wellbore
First radial
storage and/or boundaries. The anisotropy ratio is needed for calcu-
10-2 lati7 damage skin from Eq. 2. However, because the dependence
Time on kH/k v is logarithmic. its effect on the damage skin estimation
will usually be small.
The vertical permeability may be obtained from the time of onset
Fig. 2-Radial flow regimes for a horizontal well.
of the deviation of the pressure or pressure deri vative from this flow
regime as (in oilfield units)
Log-log plots ~f the change in the wellbore pressure. !i.p...•
associated with type curves have been used extensively as diagnostic k - ¢Il c, . 2 2
and interpretation tools since the early 1970's.9 In the early 1980·s.
V - 00002637 t mm [zw. (h - zw)], (3)
. "I. snbe
Bourdet et al.33 showed that a combined log-log plot of pressure and
where tsnbe is the time to feel the effect of the nearest boundary. or
pressure derivative is a better diagnostic and interpretation tool than
a pressure plot alone for comparing measured transient data with the
¢Il c,
k v -- 0.00026377Ct zw. (h - z., )2]• .
max [2 (4)
model responses. In this paper. the pressure change and pressure sjb e
derivative are denoted by !i.Pw and dPw/d In t. respectively.
where lsfbe is the time to feel the second (farthest) boundary effect.
First Radial Flow Regime. The first flow pattern for horizontal In practice. Eqs. 3 and 4 may not be reliable because the ¢Ilcr prod-
wells is elliptic-cylindrical. After some time. the elliptic-cylindrical uct may not be accurately known . Nevertheless, they can be used
flow regime becomes pseudoradial, as shown in Fig. 2. This radial qualitatively. Alternatively. because Eqs. 3 and 4 provide two pieces
flow around the wellbore may continue until the effect of the nearest of information. they may also be used to provide constraints on the
boundary is felt at the wellbore. It may not develop if the anisotropy positions of the boundaries. Thi s information is useful when the
ratio. kH/kV. is large. The behavior of this regime is similar to the ear-
ly-time behavior of partially penetrated wells. The derivatives for TABLE 1-RESERVOIR PARAMETERS FOR
all examples, for which the well/reservoir parameters are given in EXAMPLES SHOWN IN FIG. 3.
Table 1 (see Ref. 18), clearly indicate (Fig. 3) the first radial flow
regime . The slope of the semilog straight line can be expressed as Example
h
.Q!L
kH
(md)
kv
(md)
i;
J!!L J!!L
Zw
~
.
1 100 100 10 500 20 0.00146
mIl = 162.6qll/2 jkHkvL w ••• ••••• ••••• •••••• •••••• (1)
2 100 100 1 500 20 0.00389
and the damage skin as 3 100 100 5 500 5 0.00194
4 40 100 5 500 20 0.00197
• Where fwD = (f W / 2L w
200
l(1+ jk~kV) -
1 500 20 0.00530
where tcbp is the time to reach the steady-state pressure at the well-
where !1POhr is the intercept. Note that if bo. jkv/k H (h/L w), is not bore. Alternatively, if h is known, this equation may be used to esti-
small, then the linear flow regime will not take place because the mate the vertical permeability.
flow will spread out significantly from the ends of the well before
the effects of the top and bottom boundaries are seen. Interpretation
Horizontal test well data may be interpreted in two steps: the first is
Third (Intermediate) Radial Flow Regime. After the effects of the the identification of the boundaries and the main features, such as
top and bottom boundaries are felt at the wellbore, a third radial flow faults and fractures, of the model from flow regime analyses. Unlike
pattern will develop (Fig. 2) in the x-y plane. This regime does not most vertical wells, well test measurements from horizontal wells
exist for wells with a gas cap or aquifer. The semilog straight-line are usually affected by nearby shale strikes and lenses and by top
slope is and bottom boundaries at early times. The second step is to estimate
m r3 = 162.6q/l/k Hh (9)
well/reservoir parameters and to refine the model that is obtained
from flow regime analyses.
and the skin is The graphical type curve procedure is practically impossible for
the analysis of horizontal well test data because usually more than
three parameters are unknown, even for a single-layer reservoir.
Thus, along with the flow regime analyses, nonlinear least-squares
techniques are usually used to estimate reservoir parameters. In
(10) applying these methods, one seeks not merely a model that fits a
given set of output data (pressure, flow rate, and/or their derivatives)
but also knowledge of what features in that model are satisfied by
where S, ~ - 2303 IO{~~. (1 + jf;}- (~~.)] the data. Evaluation of model features can be done iteratively during
estimation and by the diagnostic tools mentioned above (identifying
flow regimes). However, if the uncertainties about the model can be
resolved with the diagnostic tools, the estimation can be carried out
- fj; L(t - ~v + ~~) (11)
with a greater confidence at a minimal cost. For instance, if the loca-
tions of the lower and upper boundaries are known or identified
skin effects. Although these are noise-free synthetic data, the third ~ 20 ~
radial flow regime is hardly identifiable even at 72 hours. This prob-
lem would become much more pronounced for real tests . If the :£ 5~
~ kH
downhole flow rate is measured or a downhole shut-in device is 10
used, the identifiable data interval would then be increased.
5~:il-~ !iJ kv
Fractured Reservoirs. Many horizontal weIIs have been drilled in 15.
fractured reservoirs, such as Respo Mare" and Austin Chalk,23 to
increase production. The solutions presented for horizontal wells in a 20 40 60 80 100
naturaIIy fractured (double-porosity) reservoirs are a simple exten-
sion of homogeneous single-layer solutions. 27-29 Although the permeability, md
double-porosity model may work for late-time behavior, it does not
work at early- and middle-time intervals unless the fracture density Fig. 5-The permeability and thickness distributions for the
is very high and its conductivity is low. nine-layer reservoir.
1000
--DO for kv=10md
11 BU for kv=lO md
---.- DD for kv = 1 md
o BU for ky= 1 md 100
'R
gj'
.~
.~... 100
--nine-layer
QJ
"0
• harmonic <ky>
-----harmonic <kHky>
10°
time, hr
Fig. 4-Comparison of derivatives for drawdowns and buildUps Fig. 6-Comparison of derivatives for layered and equivalent
for different vertical permeabllities. homogeneous single-layer systems.