Title: Development and application of type curves for pressure transient analysis of horizontal wells in shale gas reservoirs

Authors: Sung Jun Lee; Tae Hong Kim; Kun Sang Lee

Addresses: Natural Resources and Environmental Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, Korea ' Natural Resources and Environmental Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, Korea ' Natural Resources and Environmental Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, Korea

Abstract: Even though significant progresses have been made in the past few years, there appears to be a lack of information regarding the characterisation of shale gas formations. A major purpose of this study is to demonstrate impacts of horizontal well geometries and gas flow parameters as well as shale gas reservoir system on horizontal well production behaviour and flow regime on pressure transient analysis (PTA). Extensive numerical simulations were conducted to model transient pressure behaviour of a horizontal well and apply the results to well test analysis in shale gas reservoirs. Based on the results from numerical simulations, a set of type curves have been developed in terms of dimensionless pseudopressure and time. Results from type curve matching for synthetic pressure data in shale gas reservoirs demonstrate that the conventional analysis approach may still be applicable for the quantitative analysis on the transient gas flow behaviour and determination of formation properties. [Received: June 21, 2013; Accepted: August 6, 2013]

Keywords: pressure transient analysis; shale gas reservoirs; horizontal wells; type curves; pseudopressure; shale gas formations; gas flow parameters; production behaviour; numerical simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOGCT.2014.064848

International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology, 2014 Vol.8 No.2, pp.117 - 134

Received: 21 Jun 2013
Accepted: 06 Aug 2013
Published online: 30 Sep 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article