Pressure Behavior of Horizontal Wells with Multiple Fractures

Abstract

Abstract Drilling horizontal wells to accelerate production and increase recovery efficiency of oil and gas has now become common. With the increasing number of wells, transient well tests have been conducted in many wells with different geological settings. In this paper, we present a number of analytical models for horizontal wells with multiple fractures in homogeneous and laterally composite reservoirs. These solutions are applicable to finite-conductivity transverse fractures, and infinite-conductivity transverse and longitudinal fractures. They may also be used for the fractured reservoirs where the wellbore intersects with multiple fractures. We examine the pressure behavior of horizontal wells with single and multiple fractures in homogeneous systems. It is shown that the wellbore cannot be neglected in the modeling of horizontal wells with fractures unless the fracture conductivity is high. If the fracture permeability (conductivity) variations in different zones are moderate, compared to the formation permeability, the multiple fractures have almost no effect on the pressure behavior of the system; the horizontal well dominates the system's pressure behavior. If the conductivities are high, the intersected fractures will dominate the behavior of the system at early times. It is also shown that multiple finite- and infinite-conductivity transverse fractures may exhibit multiple linear flow regimes before the onset of the first horizontal well radial flow regime.