Comprehensive prediction of dynamic fracture width for formation damage control in fractured tight gas reservoir
by Yili Kang; Chengyuan Xu; Lijun You; Long Tang; Zhanghua Lian
International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology (IJOGCT), Vol. 9, No. 3, 2015

Abstract: Developed fractures are beneficial for the economic and efficient development of tight gas reservoir. But they will lead to drill-in fluid loss and induce serious formation damage. Fracture width prediction is the key for reasonable selection of particle size distribution to prevent drill-in fluid loss and control formation damage in fractured tight gas reservoir. However, the reservoir fracture width is not constant but changed with effective stress variation induced by drill-in fluid invasion, which make it more difficult for fracture width prediction. In this paper, we develop a comprehensive method to predict the reservoir dynamic fracture width. This method is based on stress-dependent permeability experiment and finite element simulation which are conducted to determine the in-situ fracture width and dynamic fracture width. The in-situ width is used as the initial condition for the simulation. According to the experiment and simulation results for North-Western Sichuan tight gas reservoir, the in-situ fracture width is 3.28-18.59 µm and the dynamic fracture width is 17.89-763 µm. Based on the dynamic fracture width prediction, reasonable particle size distribution can be designed to prevent drill-in loss and control formation damage effectively. [Received: January 27, 2014; Accepted: September 20, 2014]

Online publication date: Fri, 24-Apr-2015

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