Estimation of heat-flow rate from fluid-flow rate

Abstract

This paper presents a simplified analytical model to translate the fluid-flow rate into the heat-flow rate by incorporating the Joule-Thompson effect. Single-phase fluid flow in the formation and into the wellbore is the prime consideration of this study. The proposed approach combines the Darcy flow equation with that of Fourier's heat flow rate expression to reach the desired solution. This logical outcome became possible due to the strong correlation between the two responses in both fluid production and injection.The resultant heat flow rate helped determine the initial-formation temperature by application of the convolution method. This approach allows the treatment of each flow period separately in a multirate test sequence. We also used the superposition principle, as used in pressure-transient situations, to investigate the thermal boundary of the static-formation temperature. The proposed solutions can handle both increasing and decreasing rate sequences. The use of two published synthetic datasets helped verify the solution approach, and a field example validated the proposed methodology.