WTFM, software for well test analysis in fractured media combining fractional flow with double porosity and leakance approaches

Abstract

The identification of the hydraulic characteristics and transport properties of fractured reservoirs requires the development of specific models that account for (i) the medium heterogeneity, e.g. the presence of major conductive fractures that delimit capacitive matrix blocks, with weakly open, dead end or isolated fractures , and (ii) for the geometrical arrangement of the major conductive fractures network, which dominates the flow at the scale of the well tests. Well Tests in Fractured Media (WTFM) software takes into account these two main features by combining radial flow generalized to fractional dimension, with the theory of double-porosity, including diffusivity in the second porosity, transient inter-porosity flow and inter-porosity skin effect, and with leakance. The implementation of this nD model, with n fractional, extends usefully the domain of application of the usual 1D/2D/3D double-porosity/leakance models for a large range of connection levels of fracture networks. Although the fractures geometry and properties are not considered one by one, or by directional families, they are taken into account by averaged properties and by the impact that the whole network has on the hydrodynamic behaviour. The accuracy of the coupled transient behaviours analysis is augmented by taking into account wellbore storage and skin effects. All together, the use of these different options allows matching a wide range of pumping test curves, characteristics of distinctive behaviours, with a limited number of parameters. Distinctive well test experiments, in both sedimentary and crystalline rocks, are presented for enlightening how the pertinent use of the model options improves predictions.