Development of general inflow performance relationships (IPR's) for slanted and horizontal wells producing heterogeneous solution-gas drive reservoirs

Abstract

Since 1968, the Vogel equation has been used extensively and successfully for analyzing the inflow performance relationship (IPR) of flowing vertical wells producing by solution-gas drive. Oil well productivity can be rapidly estimated by using the Vogel IPR curve and well outflow performance. With recent interests on horizontal well technology, several empirical IPRs for solution-gas drive horizontal and slanted wells have been developed under homogeneous reservoir conditions. This report presents the development of IPRs for horizontal and slanted wells by using a special vertical/horizontal/slanted well reservoir simulator under six different reservoir and well parameters: ratio of vertical to horizontal permeability, wellbore eccentricity, stratification, perforated length, formation thickness, and heterogeneous permeability. The pressure and gas saturation distributions around the wellbore are examined. The fundamental physical behavior of inflow performance for horizontal wells is described.