The Effects of Fracture Cleanup on the Productivity of Gas CondensateSystems (2007)

Impact of fracture clean up on productivity of gas-condensate wells Mahmoud Jamiolahmady; Mahmoud Jamiolahmady Heriot-Watt University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Mehran Sohrabi; Mehran Sohrabi Heriot-Watt University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Dinesh Ganesh; Dinesh Ganesh Petro SA Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Ali Danesh Ali Danesh Heriot-Watt University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Paper presented at the European Formation Damage Conference, Scheveningen, The Netherlands, May 2007. Paper Number: SPE-107432-MS https://doi.org/10.2118/107432-MS Published: May 30 2007 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Get Permissions Search Site Citation Jamiolahmady, Mahmoud, Sohrabi, Mehran, Ganesh, Dinesh, and Ali Danesh. "Impact of fracture clean up on productivity of gas-condensate wells." Paper presented at the European Formation Damage Conference, Scheveningen, The Netherlands, May 2007. doi: https://doi.org/10.2118/107432-MS Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll ProceedingsSociety of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)SPE European Formation Damage Conference and Exhibition Search Advanced Search AbstractThe performance of fracturing treatments has been an issue for over fifty years and considerable effort has been devoted to improve its prediction performance. However, the effect of cleanup in tight gas-condensate reservoirs where fracturing considered as the most common well stimulation technique, has not been fully investigated for these low IFT systems. The performance of cleanup operation heavily depends on the mobility, i.e., viscosity and relative permeability (kr), of fracturing fluid compared to those of gas and condensate. This determines the extent of invaded zone near the wellbore region and the ease with which fracturing fluid is removed during the back-flow operation.In this work, measured values of permeability, single-phase inertial factor and kr of a propped fracture and those of a tight reservoir rock have been used to evaluate the performance of fracturing treatments. ECLIPSE 300 compositional reservoir simulator, which includes our in-house kr correlations accounting for coupling (i.e., the increase of kr as velocity increases and/or IFT decreases) and inertial (i.e., the reduction of kr as velocity increases) effects, was used to develop realistic fractured flow systems. A sensitivity analysis on the impact of different hydraulic fracturing fluid, fracture characteristics and reservoir fluids on the productivity of a single-well model were conducted resulting in some practical guidelines.The results indicated that the performance of 300 cp high viscosity fracture fluid is better than that of 10 cp low viscosity fluid, due to a lower penetration depth. When kr of oil based fracturing fluid is improved, compared to that of water based, the back flow of fracturing fluid is facilitated especially for the 10 cp low viscosity fluid. Presnece of condensate facilitate the backflow of fluid, hence, cleanup efficiency is better for richer fluid systems.IntroductionHydraulic fracturing is increasingly considered as the most established well stimulation technique in tight gas condensate reservoirs. It generally involves pumping large volumes of high viscosity fracturing fluid, usually water based, containing a granular propping agent into the formation. The injected fluid pressure causes the rock to split or fracture along the least principle stress of the rock creating a highly conductive flow path from the formation to the wellbore. It supports this open fracture and the fracture grows until pumping is stopped. The well is then shut-in after the hydraulic treatment to allow the fracture to partially close and trap the proppant before the fracture fluid begins flowing back. Fracture conductivity is thus maintained by the proppant as the well is produced. Clean up process is then started by producing back the fracturing fluid, which has invaded the fracture path and the formation region surrounding the fracture. The volume of fracture fluid produced affects the fracture conductivity and near-wellbore-formation effective-permeability, hence the improvement in well deliverability.It is well documented that hydraulic fracturing, although successful, sometimes does not respond as expected. Ineffective fracture cleanup is one of the main reasons put forward to explain this underperformance. Hence, the evaluation of the cleanup efficiency of post-fracturing has been the subject of extensive investigations over the past decades[1–8]. The impact of fracturing fluid viscosity[2], inertial forces[3], back flow rate[4], non-linear fracture relative permeability[5], Non-Newtonian viscosity behavior of fracturing fluid[6,7] and effect of excessive filter cake thickness [8] have been investigated to some extend. However, the impact of cleanup efficiency on the production performance of gas-condensate systems including the dependency of their relative permeability to velocity has not been investigated. Keywords: flow in porous media, fracturing fluid, Efficiency, hydraulic fracturing, Upstream Oil & Gas, Mscf, fracturing materials, proppant, Fluid Dynamics, viscosity Subjects: Hydraulic Fracturing, Reservoir Fluid Dynamics, Unconventional and Complex Reservoirs, Fracturing materials (fluids, proppant), Flow in porous media, Gas-condensate reservoirs This content is only available via PDF. 2007. Society of Petroleum Engineers You can access this article if you purchase or spend a download.