A New Analytical Solution of the Triple-Porosity Model for History Matching and Performance Forecasting in Unconventional Oil Reservoirs

Abstract

Summary Production data from hydraulically fractured horizontal wells in ultralow-permeability reservoirs have been observed to exhibit a half-slope straight line on a log-log plot of rate vs. time. Using these observations, many analytical models of linear flow have been developed to analyze the well performance in these reservoirs. However, it is relatively complicated to solve these models with the Laplace transform and numerical inversion. In this paper, a new analytical solution of a triple-porosity model is derived for unconventional oil reservoirs. The partial-differential equations (PDEs) are transformed into ordinary-differential equations (ODEs) by integration, instead of the Laplace transform. A rate-vs.-time solution in real-time space can be obtained, bypassing the numerical inversion for the Laplace transform. Our model is validated by comparison with both the numerical-model and Laplace-transform solutions. The physical meanings of the model parameters are analyzed through sensitivity analysis. The new model is then applied to field-production data for history matching and forecasting. Besides matching the production data, the pore volume (PV) of the matrix and fracture media can be estimated, which helps quantitative analysis of unconventional reservoirs.