Influence of Fracture Types on Oil Production in Naturally Fractured Reservoirs
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In: Energies : open-access journal of related scientific research, technology development and studies in policy and management, Vol. 15.2022, No. 7321, 7321, 05.10.2022.
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Influence of Fracture Types on Oil Production in Naturally Fractured Reservoirs
AU - Pejic, Milos
AU - Kharrat, Riyaz
AU - Kadkhodaie, Ali
AU - Azizmohammadi, Siroos
AU - Ott, Holger
PY - 2022/10/5
Y1 - 2022/10/5
N2 - Since more than half of the crude oil is deposited in naturally fractured reservoirs, more research has been focused on characterizing and understanding the fracture impact on their production performance. Naturally open fractures are interpreted from Fullbore Formation Micro-Imaging (FMI) logs. According to the fracture aperture, they are classified as major, medium, minor and hairy fractures in decreasing order of their respective aperture size. Different fracture types were set up in this work as a Discrete Fracture Network (DFN) in synthetic models and a sector model from a highly naturally fractured carbonate reservoir. The field sector model includes four wells containing image logs from two wells and production data from two other wells. Numerous simulations were conducted to capture the contribution of fracture type on production performance.Primary recovery was used for synthetic and field sector models, while waterflooding and gas injection scenarios were considered just for the synthetic models. The results showed that the fracture type and its extent play an essential role in production for all studied models. The reservoir production capabilities might be underestimated by ignoring any fracture types present in the reservoir, especially the major ones. In the secondary recovery, fractures had different impacts.Better displacement and higher recovery were promoted for waterflooding, whereas faster breakthrough times were observed for the gas injection. The performance during gas injection was more dependent on fracture permeability changes than waterflooding. This study’s findings can help in better understanding the impact of the different types of fracture networks on oil recovery at the various production stages. Additionally, the history matching process can be improved by including all types of fractures in the dynamic model. Any simplification of the fracture types might end in overestimating or underestimating the oil recovery.
AB - Since more than half of the crude oil is deposited in naturally fractured reservoirs, more research has been focused on characterizing and understanding the fracture impact on their production performance. Naturally open fractures are interpreted from Fullbore Formation Micro-Imaging (FMI) logs. According to the fracture aperture, they are classified as major, medium, minor and hairy fractures in decreasing order of their respective aperture size. Different fracture types were set up in this work as a Discrete Fracture Network (DFN) in synthetic models and a sector model from a highly naturally fractured carbonate reservoir. The field sector model includes four wells containing image logs from two wells and production data from two other wells. Numerous simulations were conducted to capture the contribution of fracture type on production performance.Primary recovery was used for synthetic and field sector models, while waterflooding and gas injection scenarios were considered just for the synthetic models. The results showed that the fracture type and its extent play an essential role in production for all studied models. The reservoir production capabilities might be underestimated by ignoring any fracture types present in the reservoir, especially the major ones. In the secondary recovery, fractures had different impacts.Better displacement and higher recovery were promoted for waterflooding, whereas faster breakthrough times were observed for the gas injection. The performance during gas injection was more dependent on fracture permeability changes than waterflooding. This study’s findings can help in better understanding the impact of the different types of fracture networks on oil recovery at the various production stages. Additionally, the history matching process can be improved by including all types of fractures in the dynamic model. Any simplification of the fracture types might end in overestimating or underestimating the oil recovery.
KW - fractured reservoirs
KW - DFN
KW - fracture types
KW - Dual Permeability
KW - oil recovery
KW - water injection
KW - gas injection
UR - https://www.mdpi.com/journal/energies
U2 - 10.3390/en15197321
DO - 10.3390/en15197321
M3 - Article
VL - 15.2022
JO - Energies : open-access journal of related scientific research, technology development and studies in policy and management
JF - Energies : open-access journal of related scientific research, technology development and studies in policy and management
SN - 1996-1073
IS - 7321
M1 - 7321
ER -