Numerical Simulation of Oil Displacement in Pattern Floods With Fractured Wells

Abstract

ABSTRACT The effect of fracture length, orientation and conductivity on waterflooding performance in repeated fractured well patterns is considered. It’s found that for fixed well spacing density there is an optimum fracture length which provides maximum of oil recovery at a fixed time of production, because of oil recovery at breakthrough changes for the worse with the increase of fracture length. For the developed oil field, aggravation may be connected with unfavorable orientation of fractures in well pattern. If orientation of fractures is in accordance with well pattern, with fixed well spacing density the aggravation due to increasing fracture length can be connected with the finite fracture conductivity. The cleanup of fracture and zone invaded by the viscous fracturing fluid, when putting the well into production, is investigated. The increase in fracture length is shown to leads to slowing-down fracture cleanup and invaded zone washout and as a result to extreme relationship between well productivity factor and fracture length. Fully implicit numerical simulator based on the method of lines, was developed for solving multi-phase flow problems. The main advantage of this method is in the efficient simulation of transient processes with great difference in time or space scales.