Compositional modeling of shale condensate gas flow with multiple transport mechanisms

Abstract

Shale condensate gas has gained great attention in recent years due to the production of profitable liquid hydrocarbons. The fluid flow in shale matrix is complex and influenced by multiple transport mechanisms, such as stress sensitivity, Knudsen diffusion, adsorption, molecular diffusion, and confined phase behavior. In addition, the coexistence of multiscale pore space, including hydraulic fractures, micro-fractures in simulated reservoir volume (SRV) and nanopores in matrix further increases the fluid flow complexity. Conventional models cannot commonly consider all the factors. In this work, we develop a hybrid model for condensate gas reservoir, where fluid flow is described by compositional model coupled with transport mechanisms, micro-fractures and hydraulic fractures are handled by multiple interacting continua (MINC) model and embedded discretized fracture model (EDFM). Then based on the proposed model, the effects of gas transport mechanisms on a multi-stage fractured horizontal well production are analyzed, where simulations are conducted with and without SRV to investigate the importance of SRV. Furthermore, some important reservoir parameters, such as SRV properties, hydraulic fracture length and bottom-hole pressure are also investigated with the proposed model.