Pressure transient behavior in an infinite reservoir with horizontal well: Non-Newtonian fluid flow in porous media

Abstract

Many authors have worked on pressure transient analysis with non-Newtonian fluid flow in porous media. The existing work is limited to radial model in a vertical well, infinite conductivity hydraulic fracture, software simulation model and numerical model. Up to date, there has been no analytical work presented for horizontal well using power law model. Power law model best characterizes non-Newtonian rheological properties and the fluid flow in porous media. Today, horizontal well is widely being used in the exploitation of oil and gas in the industry; either as a producer or an injector. A reservoir where the flow of injected polymer solution during enhanced oil recovery and high viscosity crude oil exhibit non-Newtonian behavior, is better characterized with pressure transient with power law model. This fact has been established. In this study, we developed a 3-D power law model for analyzing pressure transient behavior in a reservoir with fluid flow that exhibits non-Newtonian behavior. The solution provided is semi-analytical and numerically inverted using Stehfest Algorithm. A step-by-step analytical procedure for analyzing each flow regime is developed. In order to validate the 3-D model, we developed type curves to match data provided from simulator in previous work. The step-by-step procedure was used to analyze an eclipse simulated data. We obtained consistent results that validated the analytical mathematical model.Additionally, the 3-D analytical model developed is applicable to composite reservoir with two distinct zones due to fluid and rock properties. The flow behavior index in both zones can either be 1.0 or less than 1.0. This is unique to this study.