HORIZONTAL WELL PERFORMANCE IN OIL RESERVOIRS

WITH BOTTOM WATER OR GAS CAP

"F. AZAR-NEJAD W.S. TORTIKE, S.M. FAROUQ ALI"

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THE PETROLEUM SOCIETY PAPER 96-20 Horizontal Well Performance in Oil Reservoirs with Bottom Water or Gas Cap F. Azar-Nejad, W.S. Tortike, S.M. Farouq Ali
University of Alberta This paper is to be presented at the 47th Annual Technical Meeting of The Petroleum Society in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, June 10 - 12, 1996. Discussion of this paper is invited and may be presented at the meeting if filed in writing with the technical program chairman prior to the conclusion of the meeting. This paper and any discussion filed will be considered for publication in CIM journals.
Publication rights are reserved. This is a pre-print and is subject to correction. ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION The performance of a horizontal well in the presence of a The performance of a horizontal well in reservoirs with growing cone before breakthrough is studied. Examining the bottom water or gas cap has been studied through the
flow mechanism in reservoirs with bottom water or gas cap, assumption of constant potential (pressure) al the initial we consider the interface as a no-flow moving boundary interface, (Refs. I and 2). However, before breakthrough, before breakthrough. The paper presents a dimensionless variable, Dimensionless Density, as a function of reservoir there is another no-fiow boundary between the two fluids
which can move toward the wellbore or be stationary (at thickness, anisotropy coefficient, difference of the fluid steady state). To the best of the authors' knowledge, this densities, production rate and viscosity. This study indicates intermediate no-fiow boundary has not been considered in the existence of a Critical Dimensionless Density (CDD), the horizontal well performance elsewhere in the literature.
above which water or gas cone is stable. The results of this However, Ref. 3 considering the interface as a no-flow study show that the higher the viscosity, the higher is the moving boundary, presented the perfomance of a vertical cone height and consequently the smaller is the well in the presence of a growing cone. To calculate the
breakthrough time. Thus processes such as steam interface advance based on the equations derived in this stimulation can postpone the breakthrough time. The results paper, one has to have the potential values on the interface show that, before breakthrough, a potential solution of a no-flow boundary at the initial interface is a better and outer boundaries. On the other hand the potential
approximation with respect to those with a constant distribution inside the reservoir depends on wellbore potential boundary conditions. The shape of the interface configuration. Therefore to calculate the potential during production is developed. distribution inside the reservoir due to a horizontal well with
arbitrary geometry, Discrete Flux Element Method (DFE), presented by Azar-Nejad, Tortike and FaroUq Ali4-6 haS been used. Applying a transformation rule presented in Refs. 3 and 7, the deformed interface is shifted to its initial position.