Numerical Simulation and Sensitivity Analysis of Hydraulic Fracturing in Multilayered Thin Tight Sandstone Gas Reservoir

Abstract

Hydraulic fracturing is a necessary measurement to realize the commercial exploitation of oil and gas, but its application in multilayered thin tight sandstone gas reservoirs is still not perfect, which usually have thin gas layers mixed with complex intervals, and shows a dramatic variation in geological and geomechanical properties in the vertical direction. When conventional hydraulic fracturing methods are applied to this kind of reservoir, it is hard to get proper fracture propagation, especially for fracture height control. Facing this situation, this paper proposes a numerical study of the hydraulic fracturing mechanism and analyzes its influencing factors in the multilayered thin tight sandstone gas reservoir. Relying on a real reservoir in the Ordos Basin in China, relevant geological and geomechanical parameters of major gas layers and interlayers are obtained. According to these parameters, the hydraulic fracturing simulation in the multilayered thin tight gas reservoir model is carried out, based on which, the sensitivity analysis of different geological and fracturing parameters which affect the fracture propagation is performed. Furthermore, a real low-production well after fracturing in this kind of reservoir is selected as an example, and based on the analysis, an optimized fracturing scheme is proposed to adapt to the characteristics of the reservoir. According to the comparison of fracturing and production simulations, the optimized fracturing scheme can prevent hydraulic fractures from breaking through thin interlayers, control the fracture height, and prevent fractures from communicating strata with a high water-bearing layer. At the same time, with the same amount of proppant and fracturing fluid, longer fracture length and better fracture conductivity are created, so that the productivity of the optimized fracture has been greatly improved.