Impact of Pressure Depletion on Oil Recovery in Naturally Fractured Reservoirs

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Abstract In naturally fractured reservoirs (NFRs), current analyses for quantifying reserves based on the material balance equation (MBE) assume that fractured reservoirs behave similar to homogeneous reservoirs, which implies that the fracture and matrix pore volume compressibilities are equal. There is considerable evidence that such assumption is not always valid leading to wrong estimation of reserves. In order to overcome this deficiency a complete treatment of the material balance formulation for naturally fractured reservoirs is presented. The proposed general MBE takes into account the fact that fracture and matrix pore volume compressibilities are different. This equation is used to investigate the impact of pressure depletion on the estimation of oil in place and recovery factors. As results of this study, new equations to compute hydrocarbons originally in place in NFRs are developed for undersaturated and saturated reservoirs. New plotting schemes for the MBE involving the storage capacity ratio at initial reservoir conditions of fracture and matrix pore volume compressibilities are proposed. The capacity ratio is computed from pressure transient test performed during the early stages of production. These new plotting schemes requires only one regression parameter, the slope of a straight line passing through the origin on a Cartesian plot, which reduces the uncertainty that traditionally two regression parameters (intercept and slope) introduces; as consequence, better estimation of oil in place with fewer historical production data can be obtained. This new method is illustrated by several field examples. It is concluded that (a) the proposed material balance formulation gives better estimation of oil in place than the traditional MBE computations; (b) the split of hydrocarbons originally in place between fracture and matrix frames depends upon the storage capacity ratio at initial reservoir conditions and; (c) the impact of pressure depletion on the estimation of reserves and recovery factors in naturally fractured reservoirs is significant.