Water production is a challenge in production operations because it is generally
costly to produce, treat, and it can hamper hydrocarbon production. This is especially
true for gas wells in unconventional reservoirs like shale because the relatively low gas
rates increase the economic impact of water handling costs. Therefore, we have
considered the following questions regarding water production from shale gas wells: (1)
What is the effect of water production on gas production? (2) What are the different
water producing mechanisms? and (3) What is the water production potential of a new
well in a given gas shale province.
The first question was answered by reviewing relevant literature, highlighting
observed deficiencies in previous approaches, and making recommendations for future
work. The second question was answered using a spreadsheet based Water-Gas-Ratio
analysis tool while the third question was investigated by using artificial neural networks
(ANN) to decipher the relationship between completion, fracturing, and water
production data. We will consequently use the defined relationship to predict the average
water production for a new well drilled in the Barnett Shale. This study also derived additional insight into the production trends in the Barnett shale using standard statistical
methods.
The following conclusions were reached at the end of the study:
1) The observation that water production does not have long term
deleterious effect on gas production from fractured wells in tight gas
sands cannot be directly extended to fractured wells in gas shales because
the two reservoir types do not have analogous production mechanisms.
2) Based on average operating conditions of well in the Barnett Shale, liquid
loading was found to be an important phenomenon; especially for vertical
wells.
3) A neural network was successfully used to predict average water
production potential from a well drilled in the Barnett shale. Similar
methodology can be used to predict average gas production potential.
Results from this work can be utilized to mitigate risk of water problems in new
Barnett Shale wells and predict water issues in other shale plays. Engineers will be
provided a tool to predict potential for water production in new wells.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2009-12-7329 |
| Date | 2009 December 1900 |
| Creators | Awoleke, Obadare O. |
| Contributors | Lane, Robert H. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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