Optimum fluid placement is crucial for successful acid stimulation treatments of long horizontal wells where there is a broad variation of reservoir properties along the wellbore. Various methods have been developed and applied in the field to determine acid placement and the effectiveness of diversion process, but determining the injection profile during a course of matrix acidizing still remains as a challenge. Recently distributed temperature sensing technology (DTS) has enabled us to observe dynamic temperature profiles along a horizontal wellbore during acid treatments. Quantitative interpretation of dynamic temperature data can provide us with an invaluable tool to assess the effectiveness of the treatment as well as optimize the treatment through on-the-fly modification of the treatment parameters such as volume, injection rate and diversion method. In this study we first discuss how fluid placement can be quantified using dynamic temperature data. A mathematical model has been developed to simulate the temperature behavior along horizontal wellbores during and shortly after acid treatments. This model couples a wellbore and a near-wellbore thermal model considering the effect of both mass and heat transfer between the wellbore and the formation. The model accounts for all significant thermal processes involved during a treatment, including heat of reaction, conduction, convection. Then a fast and reliable inversion procedure is used to interpret the acid distribution profiles from the measured temperature profiles. We extend the real-time monitoring and evaluation of the acid stimulation treatment in horizontal wells to calculate the evolving skin factor as a function of time and location along the wellbore. As the skin factor is a reflection of the injectivity, it will indicate directly if the acid stimulation is effective and if diversion is successful. The approach to monitor the evolving skin along the lateral is to use a proper pressure transient model to calculate skin factor by integrating the inversion results of the temperature data (acid injection profile) with either surface or bottomhole injection pressure. This method can help engineers to optimize an acid stimulation in the field.

With the recent development of temperature measurement systems, continuous wellbore temperature profiles can be obtained with high precision. Small temperature changes can be detected by modern temperature-measuring instruments, such as fiber optic distributed temperature sensors (DTS) in intelligent completions. Analyzing such changes will potentially aid the diagnosis of downhole flow conditions. In vertical wells, temperature logs have been used successfully to diagnose the downhole flow conditions because geothermal temperature differences in depth make the wellbore temperature sensitive to the amount and the type of fluids flowing in the wellbore. Geothermal temperature does not change, however, along a horizontal wellbore, which leads to small temperature variations in horizontal wells, and interpretations of temperature profiles become harder to make than those for vertical wells. For horizontal wells, the primary temperature differences are caused by frictional effects. Therefore, in developing a thermal model for producing horizontal wellbore, subtle temperature changes should be accounted for. This study rigorously derives governing equations for thermal reservoir and wellbore flow and develops a prediction model of temperature and pressure. With the prediction model developed, inversion studies of synthetic and field examples are presented. These results are essential to identify water or gas entry, to guide the flow control devices in intelligent completions, and to decide if reservoir stimulation is needed in particular horizontal sections. This study will complete and validate these inversion studies. The utility and effect of temperature and pressure measurement in horizontal wells for flow condition interpretation have been demonstrated through synthetic and field examples.

In this work, I present the development of analytical solutions in the Laplace domain for a fully-penetrating, horizontal well producing at a constant flow rate or constant wellbore pressure in the center of a composite, cylindrical reservoir system with an impermeable outer boundary. The composite reservoir consists of two regions. The cylindrical region closest to the wellbore is stimulated, and the permeability within this region follows a power-law function of the radial distance from the wellbore. The unstimulated outer region has homogeneous reservoir properties. The current norm for successful stimulation of low permeability reservoir rocks is multi-stage hydraulic fracturing. The process of hydraulic fracturing creates thin, high permeability fractures that propagate deep into the reservoir, increasing the area of the rock matrix that is exposed to this low-resistance flow pathway. The large surface area of the high conductivity fracture is what makes hydraulic fracturing so successful. Unfortunately, hydraulic fracturing is often encumbered by problems such as high capital costs and a need for large volumes of water. Therefore, I investigate a new stimulation concept based upon the alteration of the permeability of a large volume around the producing well assembly from its original regime to that following a power-law function. I evaluate the effectiveness of the new concept by comparing it to conventional multi-stage hydraulic fracturing. The results of this investigation show that the power-law permeability reservoir (PPR) has a performance advantage over the multi-fractured horizontal treatment (MFH) only when the fracture conductivity and fracture half-length are small. Most importantly, the results demonstrate that the PPR can provide respectable flow rates and recovery factors, thus making it a viable stimulation concept for ultra-low permeability reservoirs, especially under conditions that may not be conducive to a conventional MHF treatment.

Fracture diagnostics is a key technology for well performance prediction of a horizontal well in a shale reservoir. The combination of multiple fracture diagnostic techniques gives reliable results, and temperature data has potential to provide more reliability on the results. In this work, we show an application of a temperature prediction model for a horizontal well with multiple hydraulic fractures in order to investigate the possibility of evaluating reservoir and hydraulic fracture parameters using temperature data. The model consists of wellbore model and reservoir model. The wellbore model was formulated based on mass, momentum and energy balance. The reservoir flow model was solved by a numerical reservoir simulation, and the reservoir thermal model was formulated by transient energy balance equation considering viscous dissipation heating and temperature variation caused by fluid expansion besides heat conduction and convection. The reservoir flow and reservoir thermal model were coupled with the wellbore model to predict temperature distribution in a horizontal well considering boundary conditions at the contact of reservoir and wellbore. In the reservoir system, primary hydraulic fractures which are transverse to the horizontal well were modeled with thin grid cells explicitly, and the hydraulically-induced fracture network around the horizontal well was modeled as higher permeable zone to unstimulated matrix zone. The reservoir grids between two primary fractures were logarithmically spaced in order to capture transient flow behavior. We applied the model to synthetic examples: horizontal well with identical five fractures and with different five fractures. The results show two fundamental mechanisms: heat conduction between formation and wellbore fluid at non-perforated zone, and wellbore fluid mixing effect at each fracture. The synthetic example with identical fractures shows that fracture locations affect wellbore temperature distribution because of fluid mixing effect between reservoir inflow and wellbore fluid. And also, the synthetic example with different fractures shows that the fracture heterogeneity causes different magnitude of temperature change due to inflow variation per fracture. In addition, the model was applied to synthetic examples without network fracture region in order to find the effects by the network. It reveals that under constant rate condition, network fracture masks large temperature change due to small pressure change at the contact between fracture and formation, and that under constant BHP condition, network fracture augments temperature change with the increase of flow rate in wellbore and inflow rate from reservoir. Sensitivity studies were performed on temperature distribution to identify influential parameters out of the reservoir and hydraulic fracture parameters including reservoir porosity, reservoir permeability, fracture half-length, fracture height, fracture permeability, fracture porosity, fracture network parameters, and fracture interference between multiple clusters. In this work, in order to find contributions by a target fracture, temperature change sensitivity is evaluated. Single fracture case reveals that fracture permeability, network fracture parameters and fracture geometries are primary influential parameters on temperature change at the fracture location. And also, multiple fractures case shows that temperature change is augmented with the increase of fracture geometry and is decreased with the increase of fracture permeability. These results show the possibility of using temperature to determine these sensitive parameters, and also the quantified parameter sensitivities provide better understandings of the temperature behavior of horizontal well with multiple fractures.

In this study, the optimum conditions for wormhole propagation in horizontal well carbonate acidizing was investigated numerically using a horizontal well acidizing simulator. The factors that affect the optimum conditions are rock mineralogy, acid concentration, temperature and acid flux in the formation. The work concentrated on the investigation of the acid flux. Analytical equations for injection rate schedule for different wormhole models. In carbonate acidizing, the existence of the optimum injection rate for wormhole propagation has been confirmed by many researchers for highly reactive acid/rock systems in linear core-flood experiments. There is, however, no reliable technique to translate the laboratory results to the field applications. It has also been observed that for radial flow regime in field acidizing treatments, there is no single value of acid injection rate for the optimum wormhole propagation. In addition, the optimum conditions are more difficult to achieve in matrix acidizing long horizontal wells. Therefore, the most efficient acid stimulation is only achieved with continuously increasing acid injection rates to always maintain the wormhole generation at the tip of the wormhole at its optimum conditions. Examples of acid treatments with the increasing rate schedules were compared to those of the single optimum injection rate and the maximum allowable rate. The comparison study showed that the increasing rate treatments had the longest wormhole penetration and, therefore, the least negative skin factor for the same amount of acid injected into the formations. A parametric study was conducted for the parameters that have the most significant effects on the wormhole propagation conditions such as injected acid volume, horizontal well length, acid concentration, and reservoir heterogeneity. The results showed that the optimum injection rate per unit length increases with increasing injected acid volume. And it was constant for scenarios with different lateral lengths for a given system of rock/ acid and injected volume. The study also indicated that for higher acid concentration the optimum injection rate was lower. It does exist for heterogeneous permeability formations. Field treatment data for horizontal wells in Middle East carbonate reservoirs were also analyzed for the validation of the numerical acidizing simulator.

The main objective of this research is to compare the performance of cyclic steam injection using horizontal wells based on the analytical model developed by Gunadi against that based on numerical simulation. For comparison, a common reservoir model was used. The reservoir model measured 330 ft long by 330 ft wide by 120 ft thick, representing half of a 5-acre drainage area, and contained oil based on the properties of the Bachaquero-01 reservoir (Venezuela). Three steam injection cycles were assumed, consisting of a 20-day injection period at 1500 BPDCWE (half-well), followed by a 10-day soak period, and a 180-day production period. Comparisons were made for two cases of the position of the horizontal well located on one side of the reservoir model: at mid-reservoir height and at reservoir base. The analytical model of Gunadi had to be modified before a reasonable agreement with simulation results could be obtained. Main modifications were as follows. First, the cold horizontal well productivity index was modified to that based on the Economides-Joshi model instead of that for a vertical well. Second, in calculating the growth of the steam zone, the end-point relative permeability??s of steam and oil were taken into consideration, instead of assuming them to be the same (as in the original model of Gunadi). Main results of the comparative analysis for both cases of horizontal well positions are as follows. First, the water production rates are in very close agreement with results obtained from simulation. Second, the oil production rates based on the analytical model (averaging 46,000 STB), however, are lower than values obtained from simulation (64,000 STB). This discrepancy is most likely due to the fact that the analytical model assumes residual oil saturation in the steam zone, while there is moveable oil based on the simulation model. Nevertheless, the analytical model may be used to give a first-pass estimate of the performance of cyclic steam injection in horizontal wells, prior to conducting more detailed thermal reservoir simulation.

As the development of shale resources continue to accelerate in the United States, improving the effectiveness and the cost efficiency of hydraulic fracturing completion is becoming increasingly important. For such improvement, it is necessary to investigate the effects of various design parameters and in-situ conditions on the resulting fracture dimensions and propagation patterns. In this thesis, a 3D geomechanical model was built using ABAQUS Standard to simulate the propagation of multiple competing fractures in a single fracture stage of a horizontal well. The reservoir was modeled as a porous elastic medium using C3D8RP pore pressure & stress elements. In addition, a vertical plane of COH3D8P pore pressure cohesive elements was inserted at each perforation cluster to model fracture propagation. Also, the flow distribution among perforation clusters was simulated using a parallel resistors model. The results suggested that the fracture spacing has the dominant impact on the number of propagated fractures. Even when all other conditions were favorable to fracture propagation, small fracture spacing reduced the number of propagated fractures. Similarly, in a given fracture stage, decreasing the number of perforation clusters abated inter-fracture stress interference, and increased the number of propagated fractures. Higher injection fluid viscosity significantly increased the fracture widths and slightly decreased the fracture lengths, but did not have any impact on the number of propagated fractures. Also, higher injection rates led to longer and wider fractures, and increased the number of propagated fractures. Therefore, a high injection fluid viscosity and a high injection rate should be used to promote fracture propagation. Lastly, higher Young's modulus of the target formation led to increased stress interference, and the resulting fractures were shorter and narrower. Therefore, if the Young’s modulus of a target formation is high, a wider fracture spacing should be considered. Through this study, a 3D geomechanical model was successfully formulated to simulate the propagation of multiple competing fractures. In addition, the effects of various hydraulic fracturing design parameters and in-situ conditions on the resulting fracture dimensions and propagation patterns were demonstrated. / text

The primary objectives of this research were to understand the potential for gravity-stable surfactant floods for enhanced oil recovery without the need for mobility control agents and to optimize the performance of such floods. Surfactants are added to injected water to mobilize the residual oil and increase the oil production. Surfactants reduce the interfacial tension (IFT) between oil and water. This reduction in IFT reduces the capillary pressure and thus the residual oil saturation, which then results in an increase in the water relative permeability. The mobility of the surfactant solution is then greater than the mobility of the oil bank it is displacing. This unfavorable mobility ratio can lead to hydrodynamic instabilities (fingering). The presence of these instabilities results in low reservoir sweep efficiency. Fingering can be prevented by increasing the viscosity of the surfactant solution or by using gravity to stabilize the displacement below a critical velocity. The former can be accomplished by using mobility control agents such as polymer or foam. The latter is called gravity-stable surfactant flooding, which is the subject of this study. Gravity-stable surfactant flooding is an attractive alternative to surfactant polymer flooding under certain favorable reservoir conditions. However, a gravity-stable flood requires a low velocity less than the critical velocity. Classical stability theory predicts the critical velocity needed to stabilize a miscible flood by gravity forces. This theory was tested for surfactant floods with ultralow interfacial tension and found to over-estimate the critical velocity compared to both laboratory displacement experiments and fine-grid simulations. Predictions using classical stability theory for miscible floods were not accurate because this theory did not take into account the specific physics of surfactant flooding. Stability criteria for gravity-stable surfactant flooding were developed and validated by comparison with both experiments and fine-grid numerical simulations. The effects of vertical permeability, oil viscosity and heterogeneity were investigated. Reasonable values of critical velocity require a high vertical permeability without any continuous barriers to vertical flow in the reservoir. This capability to predict when and under what reservoir conditions a gravity-stable surfactant flood can be performed at a reasonable velocity is highly significant. Numerical simulations were also used to show how gravity-stable surfactant flooding can be optimized to increase critical velocity, which shortens the project life and improves the economics of the process. The critical velocity for a stable surfactant flood is a function of the microemulsion viscosity and it turns out there is an optimum value that can be used to significantly increase the velocity and maintain stability. For example, the salinity gradient can be optimized to gradually decrease the microemulsion viscosity. Another alternative is to inject a polymer drive following the surfactant solution, but using polymer complicates the process and adds to its cost without significant benefit in most gravity-stable surfactant floods. A systematic approach was introduced to make decisions on using polymer in applications based on stability criteria and cost. Also, the effect of an aquifer on gravity-stable surfactant floods was investigated as part of a field-scale study and strategies were developed to minimize its effect on the process. This study has provided new insights into the design of an optimized gravity-stable surfactant flood. The results of the numerical simulations show the potential for high oil recovery from gravity-stable surfactant floods using horizontal wells. Application of gravity-stable surfactant floods reduces the cost and complexity of the process. The widespread use of horizontal wells has greatly increased the attractiveness and potential for conducting surfactant floods in a gravity-stable mode. This research has provided the necessary criteria and tools needed to determine when gravity-stable surfactant flooding is an attractive alternative to conventional surfactant-polymer flooding. / text

Two-phase flow occurs during the production of oil and gas in the wellbores. Modeling this phenomenon is important for monitoring well productivity and designing surface facilities. Since the transient time period in the wellbore is usually shorter than reservoir time steps, stabilized flow is assumed in the wellbore. As such, semi-steady state models are used for modeling wellbore flow dynamics. However, in the case that flow variations happen in a short period of time (i.e., a gas kick during drilling) the use of a transient two-phase model is crucial. Over the last few years, a number of numerical and analytical wellbore simulators have been developed to mimic wellbore-reservoir interaction. However, some issues still remain a concern in these studies. The main issues surrounding a comprehensive wellbore model consist of fluid property calculations, such as black-oil or compositional models, governing equations, such as mechanistic or correlation-based models, effect of temperature variation and non-isothermal assumption, and methods for coupling the wellbore to the reservoir. In most cases, only standalone wellbore models for blackoil have been used to simulate reservoir and wellbore dynamic interactions. Those models are based on simplified assumptions that lead to an unrealistic estimation of pressure and temperature distributions inside the well. In addition, most reservoir simulators use rough estimates for the perforation pressure as a coupling condition between the wellbore and the reservoir, neglecting pressure drops in the horizontal section. In this study, we present an implementation of a compositional, pseudo steady-state, non-isothermal, coupled wellbore-reservoir simulator for fluid flow in wellbores with a vertical section and a horizontal section embedded on the producing reservoir. In addition, we present the implementation of a pseudo-compositional, fully implicit, transient two-fluid model for two-phase flow in wellbores. In this model, we solve gas/liquid mass balance, gas/liquid momentum balance, and two-phase energy equations in order to obtain the five primary variables: liquid velocity, gas velocity, pressure, holdup and temperature. In our simulation, we compared stratified, bubbly, intermittent flow effects on pressure and temperature distributions in either a transient or steady-state condition. We found that flow geometry variation in different regimes can significantly affect the flow parameters. We also observed that there are significant differences in flow rate prediction between a coupled wellbore-reservoir simulator and a stand-alone reservoir simulator, at the early stages of production. The outcome of this research leads to a more accurate and reliable simulation of multiphase flow in the wellbore, which can be applied to surface facility design, well performance optimization, and wellbore damage estimation. / text

The acknowledgement of the existence of stress changes in the reservoir due to production from a propped-open fracture has resulted in the development of a new concept: oriented or altered-stress refracturing. By initiating a secondary fracture perpendicular to the initial fracture, refracturing makes it possible to access higher pressurized regions of the reservoir, thus improving the productivity of the well. The redistribution of stresses around a fractured vertical well has two sources: (a) opening of propped fracture (mechanical effects) and (b) production or injection of fluids in the reservoir (poroelastic effects). The coupling of both phenomena is numerically modeled to quantify the extent and timing of stress reorientation around fractured production wells. Guidelines and type-curves are established that allow an operator to choose the timing of the refracture operation in the life of the well, and evaluate the potential increase in well production after refracturing. The selection of candidate wells for refracturing is often very difficult based on the information available at the surface. We propose a systematic methodology, based on dimensionless groups, that allows a field engineer to evaluate a well's potential for refracturing from an analysis of field production data and other reservoir data commonly available. This analysis confirms the crucial role played by stress reorientation in the success of refracturing operations. Another topic of interest is the multi-stage fracturing of horizontal wells. The opening of a propped transverse fracture causes a reorientation of stresses in its neighborhood, which in turn affects the direction of propagation of subsequent fractures. This phenomenon, often referred to as stress shadowing, can negatively impact the efficiency of each fracturing stage. By calculating the trajectory of multiple transverse fractures, we offer some insight on the completion designs that will (a) minimize fracture spacing without compromising the efficiency of each fracturing stage and (b) effectively stimulate natural fractures in the vicinity of the created fracture. In addition, a novel detection method of mechanical interference between multiple transverse fractures is established, based on net fracturing pressure data measured in the field, to calculate the optimum fracture spacing for a specific well. / text