Importance of Multiple-Contact and Swelling Tests for Huff-n-Puff Simulations: A Montney Shale Example
Authors: Hamdi Hamidreza , Clarkson Christopher R. , Esmail Ali , Costa Sousa Mario 
Published: October 2020

Accurate assessment of Huff-n-Puff (HnP) performance using compositional reservoir simulation requires a representative fluid model tuned to several PVT measurements.In unconventional reservoir applications, fluid models are typically constructed using laboratory depletion tests (e.g. CCE and CVD) only. In this work, multiple depletion and gas injection tests (e.g. swelling, shrinkage, and multiple-contact tests) are integrated to construct a common Equation of State (EOS) that is used to evaluate HnP performance for a Montney light oil example.

Several sets of depletion and gas injection PVT data were available for this study.However,the injection tests were conducted using oil samples taken at different production times. Further, different hydrocarbon injection gases were used to perform the experiments. Building a common EOS for this range of measurements, which were conducted on multiple samples, is not a straightforward task. Therefore, a workflow, and several computer programs, are developed to simulate all the PVT tests simultaneously and to conduct the regression process. The resulting EOS is then used to construct a representative compositional simulation model. The model is calibrated through history-matching and employed to design an optimal HnP process for the studied Montney well. The results are then compared with a case where no injection tests were used to develop the fluid model.

The results indicate that it is particularly challenging for the regression process to maintain a balance between the quality of the match for the depletion and the injection tests.This process required some unique global optimization methods to build a reliable EOS that matched all the measured data.

For this study, the importance of the injection PVT tests is mainly reflected in tuning the interfacial tension, and secondarily the viscosity and phase density values. However, in this case study, it appears that the importance of the injection tests for tuning the EOS is marginal. In other words, depletion tests were sufficient to calibrate an EOS that resulted in an acceptable match to many measured data points obtained from multi-contact and swelling tests. This finding is mainly related to the fact that all the injected gases are hydrocarbon gases with a composition consistent with the solution gas in the oil samples. Therefore, the PVT model could also be used for injection simulations, even though the EOS was calibrated to the depletion tests only. However, it is expected that this is not the case for other non-hydrocarbon gas injection tests (e.g. using CO2 or N2) where the depletion tests cannot easily constrain the properties of the injectants during the depletion process.

The constructed PVT models are used as input to dual-porosity dual-permeability (DP-DK) models, which are calibrated using multi-phase production data. The results further indicate that the two EOSs could predict an optimal HnP process with a minimal recovery difference.

A new fluid modelling workflow is introduced for the first time to evaluate the importance of various gas injection PVT experiments on HnP performance prediction. This new method is tested against a field example with several measurements from a multi-fractured horizontal well (MFHW) in the Montney Formation in Canada.